HYDERABAD: Clueless. The ambitious plan of Hyderabad Metro Water Supply and Sewerage Board to deliver water bills at the doorstep and on a monthly basis with the help of private agencies appears to be just that. The plan introduced on August 1 has gone awry with the agencies and HMWSSB staff running around in circles.

As against the target to disburse at least 4.25 lakh bills in place of the 3 lakh-odd bills being done now, only a small percentage has been achieved. An estimated Rs. 3-crore jump in revenue arrivals was expected, but hardly a few lakh rupees has been collected so far after more than a fortnight into the campaign.

Yet to take off

In fact, in some places the plan is yet to take off and elsewhere, entire divisions are not being covered thanks to lack of coordination between the HMWSSB staff and private agencies. Further, the connivance of some HMWSSB personnel with households in grounding illegal connections is all too evident as the former choose to look the other way for obvious reasons, hitting the spot billing plan badly. The inexperience of private agencies in locating the addresses unlike the HMWSSB staff, which was well versed with the topography is also said to be affecting the pace of the plan.

Faced with long pending bills, un-metered connections and staff unable to make people cough up their arrears, the HMWSSB had outsourced its bill collection process to four companies -- AP Online Services, Excel Computers, Sri Rami Reddy & Co and Bhavani. The companies and the HMWSSB billing staff were to have shared the job between themselves on a fortnightly basis.

Streamlining

"Delayed payments have been the bane of the water board and monthly billing hopefully will bolster our revenues," said officials during the launch of the plan. According to official estimates, about two lakh of the 5.2 lakh connections are illegal while the customers, who were used to bi-monthly bills, had become inured to irregular payments.

Similarly, the board's experimentation with online payments in Division 7 with the help of AP Online Services, too, appears to have hit a roadblock.

HMWSSB officials said efforts were on to streamline the plan and make it foolproof. "Any new plan will take time to stabilise. We are confident of increasing the revenue with the spot billing plan," they said.

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