Bhubaneswar, June 6: The Public Health Engineering Organisation (Pheo) has come up with a comprehensive plan to ensure timely distribution of water bills to households. The plan will be executed in collaboration with the postal department which distributes the bills.
According to the plans, Pheo personnel will hand over the water bills of the every month to India Post by the fourth day of the next month. The postmen of the India Post will then deliver the water bills to the households within six days.
"There was some confusion over the bill distribution process between us and the postal department, which had resulted in people not getting their bills on time. Some people also had to pay fines for late payment of bills as they actually received their bills late. This sparked outrage among them," said Pheo superintending engineer C.R. Jena.
Jena said one of the major problems was finding the right addresses of the consumers. "Many of the billing addresses were incomplete because of which the postmen were finding it difficult to deliver those. We have decided to rectify the addresses within two months," he said.
To correct the addresses, Pheo has issued a public notice for all consumers to submit their know-your-customer details to them by the end of June. "The customers can come and submit their details which include documents such as connection agreement, identity and address proof along with contact numbers and email addresses," said a Pheo official.
Pheo is also in the process of introducing an online payment option for the water bills, which will also be collected by the India Post and then remitted to the organisation. Pheo has decided to partner with Tata Consultancy Services to design the module of the online payment option. Pheo will transfer the data of the consumers to India Post for the purpose.
In July last year, Pheo had inked a pact with the postal department for water bill distribution and tax collection. According to the agreement, postmen will deliver bills to the consumers and the bills may be paid at any post office across the city. The plan was rolled out in August.
However, the problem in bill distribution and tax collection occurred just two months after the plan was rolled out. Initially, it was decided that consumers could pay the bills at both the post office counters and Pheo counters. Later, the consumers were told to pay the bills only at the post office counters.
"We are not getting water bills on time. The situation was the same when Pheo was distributing the bills. The postal department is no better in doing the job. We often have to pay fines for receiving the bills very late. The scenario needs to change at the earliest," said Patia resident Gyana Hota.