Bhubaneswar: The state government is planning to collect bills for utility services, such as electricity and water supply, using an online payment gateway.

The Bharat Bill Payment System, developed by the National Payments Corporation of India, aggregates multiple billers onto a single platform, which provides an easily accessible bill payment services to consumers.

The aim here is to promote cashless economy by providing the facilities of seamless digital payment to the citizens.

The state government has decided to make the Public Health Engineering Organisation (Pheo) a biller to collect water cess from the consumers. The project will be launched in the city's three divisions. On successful implementation, the scheme will be replicated across the state.

"We have got a letter from the Union government asking us to identify billers to join the recently developed payment system. We already have certain local portals for the service, but this will be a single platform," said an official of urban development department.

According to the letter of the Centre, once the biller joins the system, it will be able to discover and access the website, mobile apps of all partners, which include the banks and wallet operators.

The consumer on the other hand will be able to make the payment through various payment gateways, payment banks, wallet or Internet banking.

To expand the service, the housing and urban development department has also asked the agencies to submit the figures of online payments received in the past two years.

"The public health divisions, civic body as well as the electricity authorities have been asked to submit the figures," the official said.

At present, the state government has a portal for various utility payments. The portal, however, is under development and is yet to become a full-fledged service.

"Digital payment system is getting popularised. I realised that I am using my debit and credit card more than using cash nowadays. It is happening because the online mode of payments is easier than using cash. Introduction of the same for utility payment will add more to the easy life," said Sudhesh Mehta, an IT engineer.