Bhubaneswar, Oct. 29: The Public Health Engineering Organisation (PHEO) will ask city residents to pay their water bills only at counters of the postal department from next month to avoid confusion in the water tax collection process.

The move came after confusion prevailed between public health organisation and India Post officials. "We had decided to open counters at both our own offices and post offices for payment of the bills, but discrepancies arose while calculating the final bill amount assome consumers were making their payments in part at the post offices and in part at our offices. So, we are going to ask people to make payments only at post offices," said superintending engineer C.R. Jena.

Jena, however, added that only commercial and industrial units would be asked to make payments at the PHEO counters. "We have asked our officials to discourage domestic users from making payments at PHEO counters. We have also decided to carry out a sensitisation drive to let people know about the move," said the engineer.

The PHEO and the postal department had entered into an agreement in April for distribution and collection of water and sewerage taxes from city residents.

The process had finally started in July, but postmen faced difficulties while distributing the bills because of many incorrect or incomplete addresses. The PHEO officials, who used to deliver the bills earlier, were acquainted with the addresses because of familiarity.

"We found that nearly 10 per cent of the water bills of consumers were being returned by the postal department because of incorrect address. To solve this problem, we have asked our officials to provide handholding support to the postmen while delivering the bills," said another PHEO official.

At present, there are 72 small and large post offices in the city with more than 220 postmen. According to information obtained from the postmaster general's office, the postmen here deliver nearly 20,000 official and personal letters, bills and parcels every day.

The officials of the PHEO have decided to conduct awareness programmes through newspaper and television advertisements, loudspeaker announcements and banners to ask people to make payments at post offices. "Many consumers are unaware of our collaboration with the postal department for tax collection. So, we have decided to conduct awareness campaigns," said the official.

"This is a good move. We are already getting landline phone bills through post. It is indeed a reliable way, but people need to be aware of the new decision or else it will create confusion," said Satya Nagar resident Jivan Kumar, a consumer.

Another consumer Niraj Kumar Sahoo said that last month, a postman gave him his water bill.

"I was surprised to receive the bill from the postman as it was the first time. I hadn't heard about the collaboration between the two offices. When I found out, I went to the PHEO counter and paid the bill," said Kumar. He agreed that an awareness campaign was a must.