How “legal” is electricity billing now?

People have received WhatsApp messages, SMS and even emails from both the CEB and LECO informing they pay their 2026 May electricity consumption bill, due date given as 15 June in some instances.

These have raised serious issues with:

(01) CEB is no more. It was legally dissolved and its services and responsibilities transferred to private companies, from 10 March, 2026. 

(02) Social media tools and platforms being used for numerous scams in present day Sri Lanka, how authentic can these requests by non-existent, dissolved State entities be, for settling electricity bills?

(03) Can LECO bill its (former) consumers since it had been transferred to a new company with the responsibility of billing consumers said to be now with the new company Electricity Distribution Lanka Ltd.(EDL)?

All these issues have firm reasons to question requests for settling of electricity bills by CEB in particular and also by LECO. 

The CEB remains wholly abolished since 10th March, 2026 with the 56 year old "Ceylon Electricity Board Act No. 17 of 1969" being completely repealed. According to Pubudu Niroshan, head of the Taskforce handling "restructuring", from 10 March consumers will be dealt with by EDL. " From tomorrow (10 March), the name the public will encounter as electricity consumers is EDL" he was reported as saying.

This basically says, almost 03 months after the repeal of the 1969 Act that established the CEB, and LECO that was established by CEB, consumers cannot get calls from CEB and LECO  to settle bills in their names. 

That also raises another issue; can Banks continue operating bank accounts of legally dissolved entities? In short, can there be functioning CEB bank accounts 03 months after it was legally dissolved? Signatories who opened bank accounts and operated those accounts as CEB, are no more. Banks cannot continue with an account of an entity that is no more and keep crediting money to it.

In today's context, when some banks are accused of consciously or mistakenly mishandling customer funds in millions, what trust can electricity consumers have in paying their monthly dues to bank accounts of legally dissolved CEB would settle their bills?  

This legal mess has not been cleared. That remains the reason for consumers to still receive bills in the name of CEB and LECO even after 03 months, despite the head of the Taskforce Niroshan saying it would be EDL, not CEB.

Fact remains, this JVP/NPP Government that carried out the restructuring according to the IMF Agreement, is yet to inform People, they have dissolved CEB, transferred out LECO to a new private company and hence the legal right to bill and provide other services previously provided by CEB and LECO to their consumers have been vested with the private company Electricity Distribution Lanka Ltd., since 10 March 2026. This should be officially informed to all electricity consumers "individually" as they are in individual legal agreements with CEB and LECO from the day their applications for a service connection to procure electricity was accepted by CEB and LECO.

Legally, once the CEB with whom the consumer signed an agreement to receive electricity and pay tariff for consumed electricity is no more, the agreement automatically becomes wholly invalid and annulled. Fundamentally thereafter, consumers are left with no legal provider of electricity to whom they have to pay for the power supplied.

Legality of power supply to individual consumers can be more complicated than outlined here. But first, let the JVP/NPP Government know they need to officially inform all consumers individually, where this so-called "restructuring" has left them as consumers.