Team Herald
MARGAO: Stating that strict action will be taken against meter readers, who were responsible for issues the customers have been facing with their water bills, PWD Minister Nilesh Cabral said spot billings issued per month will resolve such problems in the future.
Cabral added that the “Bharat Bill Payment System” will be integrated with the Water Supply Division of PWD Department in the same way the system was integrated with the Electricity Department where all bill payments by consumers are being done online.
The former Power Minister said, “In this system which should be launched for the PWD Department by June, there will be no need for payments by cheques or demand drafts and all mediums of online payments will be accepted.”
He added that such payments are sometimes routed directly by the banks when it comes to the Electricity Department and that he is aware of some technical problems that have risen due to this and he will make sure that these kinds of problems won’t be there when the water bill payments go online.
He added that the idea behind this is to ensure the customers are not troubled.
He further said spot billings will also resolve the issue where customers were getting combined bills of 2-3 months together.
He said, “In such cases there have been complaints of the meter readings being wrong and that anyone who has such genuine complaints, adjustments will be made in their final bill.”
He added that such persons would have to visit the PWD Department though.
He pulled up meter readers and said machines were purchased by the department earlier which should have made the work of these meter readers easier but he found that they were not doing their job efficiently.
He added that per day, each meter reader should be able to complete 40-50 houses and those who cannot do this should sit at home.
He added that he had found out that many times these meter readers had not read the meters correctly, which had read to problematic bills being issued, which is now being corrected.
Cabral also referred to the scheme where consumers who use less than 16,000 litres of water per month get free water supply as in bills worth Rs 0.
He said, “A little over 1.5 lakh consumers get such free bills but there are 28,000 consumers who use more than 16,000 litres of water per month and are facing issues with their water bills.”
He pointed out that it is this section of 28,000 consumers who are facing issues and that he had asked his Principal Chief Engineer to do a study of the consumption pattern of such users to try and identify if there were any common problems that these consumers are facing.
He added that he is expecting this study to be completed soon following which they will take appropriate steps.
Cabral also commented about the recent suspension order issued by the Chief Minister to an Assistant Engineer and Junior Engineer over the poor quality of road works between Sanquelim and Chorla Ghat and the poor execution too.
He added that they are issuing a short tender for this work as they want to ensure that the work is completed before the monsoon period.
It may be recalled that the PWD had issued a short tender for the Canacona highway stretch too following complaints over the quality of the road.
