PANAJI: Amidst complaints of irregular and inflated bills, the Public Works Department (PWD) has introduced spot billing system which will be implemented for all water consumers in a phased manner. Executive engineer Dileep Dhavalikar informed that the department had introduced the process of spot billing in the capital city of Panaji in January 2016 and would cover the taluka in a phased manner.
“We had started spot billing more than a year ago in Panaji and so far more than 12,000 consumers are receiving bills on the spot in comparison to the earlier process of delayed bill where the department’s meter reader would collect the data and then the bill would be raised in the following month,” he stated.
Stating that there are around 33,000 consumers under the Panaji division, he said, “We will introduce spot billing for all in a phased manner.”
Speaking about the benefits of spot billing, Dhavalikar said that the consumer can verify the meter reading when the department’s employee delivers the bill at the doorstep.
“The biggest benefit to the consumer is that they can verify if the bill raised is correct and the meter reading can be cross-checked in comparison to the earlier system where you could not verify as the bill would have meter reading of the previous month,” he added.
The executive engineer informed that the consumer during the first spell of spot billing will receive a bill for two to three months due to the gap in billing cycle. “All those who have been receiving this earlier get a bill over a period of 32 days but whoever is getting it for the first time may receive for around 75-90 days,” he informed.
When questioned about the rising complaints of inflated bills due to incorrect meter reading, Dhavalikar said that the meter reader has to click a picture of the meter which is recorded on the billing machine and the same picture is recorded at the data centre. From the details of the picture, the billing machine then raises the bill for the consumer.
He said, “However, if there are any grievances, the consumers can get the bills rectified by the revenue cell under the assistant engineer at the division office.”
He further informed that the spot billing system is being successfully implemented in Pernem, Mapusa, Calangute, Bicholim and Porvorim apart from Ponda where the system was introduced in 2008.