Urban News

The Hindu      19.11.2010

HMWSSB to issue manual bills

Hyderabad: Water Board's attempt to computerise water billing has run into rough weather in respect of some bulk consumers. The Board is forced to issue manual bills as its computer software is not able to generate bills of varying tariffs for one consumer.

For instance the Railways draw a huge quantity of 2.67 mgd from six different points. But it has to be considered as one CAN (consumer account number) for the purpose of billing. Same is the case with the Military Engineering Services (MES) which draws 4.5 mgd from four points and the Cantonment Board which gets 3.54 mgd from three points. The tariff of some of these agencies has to be calculated at a minimum rate for 85 per cent supply, 15 per cent supply on commercial rate and 20 per cent as subsidy. And here lies the problem. All these different rates the computer is not able to work out to generate a bill as the software designers did not take this into account while preparing the programme in May 2009. Therefore, the Water Board is now issuing manual bills while these agencies are making online payment.

The Water Board is now trying to change its billing software so as to generate computerised bills for these departments. There are a total of 800 bulk consumers, mostly industries. Most of them are brought under the computer network. The remaining too will be covered shortly. “By next month we will have cent percent online demand and collection mechanism in place,” said K. Ashok Reddy, Executive Director, HMWSSB.

Computer generation of bills is essential as it will eliminate human intervention. In the manual billing it is possible to tinker with bills by not recording correct meter reading. But in computerised billing there is no scope for tampering. Also it will be possible to immediately know if there are any arrears pending against a particular consumer. As of now the Water Board doesn't know if the Railways and other bulk consumers have any arrears to pay.