PANJIM: There’s a stark difference in the billing system of the government’s two most basic departments. While the Electricity Department has reverted to its old billing system after an unsuccessful attempt at spot billing, the Public Works Department (PWD) has introduced spot billing in the Capital.
According to sources in the Vidyut Bhavan, the Electricity Department’s headquarters, the department has decided to revert to its old system of delivering delayed bills instead of the spot billing process. Executive Engineer Paul Fernandes said the decision was taken due to mounting complaints regarding discrepancies in the billing process.
“We have been receiving too many complaints from consumers regarding the billing system. Most of the times consumers have received inflated bills and this is causing a problem for the consumer as well as for the department staff,” Fernandes said.
He said the department has gone back to the earlier process, where the meter reader would collect the meter reading, and then deliver the bills generated at the back office during the subsequent meter reading after a month instead of spot bills generated on a portable printing machine.
Contrary to this, PWD has decided to expand its area of spot billing and has commenced the system for water consumers in Panjim.
Executive Engineer Dileep Dhavalikar said the department has been successfully implementing spot billing in Ponda taluka since 2008 and now has expanded the facility in Pernem, Bicholim, Calangute, Porvorim and Mapusa.
Responding to queries of contrast in the approach and success of the implementation, Dhavalikar said the technology used by the Power Department is different from the one PWD is utilising.
He said, “The portable printing machine is connected to a phone and the meter reader has to click a picture of the meter reading. This is recorded on the billing machine and the same picture is recorded at the data centre. The program is developed in such a way that from the details of the picture, the billing machine raises the bill for the consumer as per the consumption.”
He said the department has successfully tested the spot billing system in Ponda, and in Panjim more than 12,000 consumers have already started receiving spot bills.
