Entering ChinaLast year, the wrong meter was read and rectified, and this year there was another error, involving more than 200,000 households! Chongqing Gas apologized and was fined 8.1 million yuan, and a special rectification supervision team has been dispatched
According to CCTV News, on February 16, Chongqing Gas Group Co., Ltd. issued an announcement. The announcement said: The company sincerely accepts the investigation and handling opinions, deeply reflects, and extends deep apologies to the majority of users!
The company also said that in response to the previously reported problems, it has dispatched a special team for rectification and supervision. At the same time, the relevant responsible persons and responsible departments will be seriously held accountable.
Image source: Company announcement
Previously, on February 14, the Chongqing Municipal Administration for Market Regulation issued a “circular” stating that since January 2025, some citizens have successively reported that Chongqing Gas Group’s gas charges are abnormal.
Image source: Chongqing Market Supervision Official Account
According to the report, Chongqing Gas Group’s illegal estimation and miscopying are still frequent.
1. There is the problem of “zero estimation and accumulation”, in the company’s January 2025 bill, there are 227,200 users who estimate the gas volume in the first two months to be 0, and this time the actual gas consumption in the first two months has been accumulated, and the gas fee has been paid for 3 months at one time.
2. There is the problem of “overestimation and pre-receipt”, since May 2024, the company has violated the stipulation that the gas estimation is not higher than the user’s maximum monthly actual gas consumption in the previous year, involving 31,100 households, and the relevant situation was not informed to the relevant users in time, with an overestimated gas volume of 711,100 cubic meters and an advance collection amount of about 1.56 million yuan.
3. There is a problem of “mis-copying and mis-recording”, since May 2024, the company has miscalculated and misreceived 1,739 households due to mis-copying and mis-recording, involving 126,700 cubic meters of gas and an amount of 278,200 yuan.
After investigation, Chongqing Gas Group did not deeply learn lessons and failed to rectify effectively, and planned to give heavy penalties – a total of 8.1 million yuan in fines. At the same time, a special working group was set up to settle in the enterprise to carry out a three-month special rectification.
It is worth mentioning that this announcement is less than a year after the last rectification of Chongqing Gas Group.
At the beginning of last year, Chongqing urban area set off a storm of “skyrocketing gas costs”. Many citizens have reported that since the replacement of the new gas meter at the end of 2023, the gas bill at home has risen sharply, and the gas bill in some months is even 2-3 times higher than before.
In this regard, on the evening of April 13 of that year, the Chongqing Municipal Government announced that it had instructed relevant municipal departments to set up a joint investigation team to conduct investigations in Chongqing Gas Group and other enterprises.
Ten days later, Chongqing Gas issued an announcement, admitting that the company overcharged 1,182 gas fees, involving an amount of more than 2.8585 million yuan, and all of them had been cleared.
Regarding the next rectification plan, Chongqing Gas said at that time that it would implement the government’s work requirements of “monthly copying, monthly clearing, and monthly pushing” in stages, so that customers could have a timely and clear understanding of gas consumption;
At the same time, the metering and charging system is upgraded in time to realize the automatic comparison and analysis of gas volume and gas charges, automatic early warning and automatic verification of abnormal gas volume and gas charges, and timely correction of errors.
