Total refunds exceed 300 million yuan. The State Administration for Market Regulation is cracking down on irregularities in residents' water, electricity, and gas charges.

People’s Finance and News, April 7—According to a reporter’s understanding today, from May 2025 to January 2026, the State Administration for Market Regulation will, in response to outstanding pain points that strongly concern the public—such as inaccurate metering for water, electricity, and gas, and non-compliant charges—carry out a nationwide comprehensive rectification of issues related to residents’ water, electricity, and gas metering and charging. The agency will do so by adopting methods such as “four not two direct approaches” and “follow-up reviews.” It will strictly investigate and punish, in accordance with law, unlawful and rule-violating conduct such as conducting first inspection after meter installation was not carried out before the meter was installed, non-standard practices in clearly marked prices, and failure to implement government-prescribed pricing and government-guided pricing. For water, electricity, and gas public utilities where illegal charges are found, the agency will adopt a “zero tolerance” attitude to advance fee-refund rectification, urging relevant enterprises to cumulatively refund about 301 million yuan. It has investigated and handled about 14,000 illegal cases in the water, electricity, and gas sector, with confiscation and fines totaling about 235 million yuan. Next, the State Administration for Market Regulation will incorporate supervision and inspections of metering and pricing in the residents’ water, electricity, and gas sector into the key focus areas of routine oversight. Through organizing follow-up reviews of rectification efforts (“follow-up checks”), it will track and re-verify the effectiveness of problem rectification, and will firmly prevent illegal and non-compliant practices from rebounding. At the same time, it will further improve the institutional framework, optimize regulatory measures, strengthen policy publicity and guide corporate compliance, and continuously standardize the development order of the water, electricity, and gas industry. (CCTV News)