HMWS&SB to stop taking cash payments soon with Electronic Bills

 

HMWS&SB to stop taking cash payments soon with Electronic Bills

              HMWS&SB is taking multiple steps to switch to 100% ‘cashless’, bill collection.

              HMWS&SB is already live on NPCI BBPs (Bharat Bill Payment System).

This means the basic integration for digital bill collection is already in place. Now, HMWS&SB is leveraging this to go for 100% ‘cashless’, bill collection.

The plan is to completely move to 100% ‘cashless’, bill collection by September 2022.

The full form of HMWS&SB is  ‘Hyderabad Metropolitan Water Supply and Sewerage Board’.

The Board has following Functions & Responsibilities in the Hyderabad Metropolitan Area:-

§  The Supply of potable water including planning, design, construction, maintenance, operation & management of water supply system.

§  Sewerage, Sewerage Disposal and sewerage treatment works including planning, design, construction, maintenance, operation & management of all sewerage and sewerage treatment works.

After the introduction of the 20KL free water scheme, the monthly revenue of the HMWS&SB has dropped to around Rs 70 crore per month, of which Rs 50 crore is ‘cashless’.

The Hyderabad Metropolitan Water Supply and Sewerage Board (HMWS&SB) plans to go fully ‘cashless’ over the next two months, having decided to receive bill payments only through the digital mode.

Around 30 per cent to 40 per cent of consumers not availing the 20KL free water scheme still pay their bills in cash, and the Water Board wants to do away with this practice once and for all, by encouraging online and UPI payments.

After the introduction of the 20KL free water scheme, the monthly revenue of the HMWS&SB has dropped to around Rs 70 crore per month, of which Rs 50 crore is ‘cashless’.  Over 60 per cent consumers are availing the 20KL free water scheme, which leaves about 4.5 lakh Consumer Account Numbers (CANs) being billed on a monthly basis. Of these, 46,000 come into the ‘non-domestic’ consumer category who pay around Rs 67 crore.

              “Earlier, the problem we faced in going completely cashless was slum dwellers. Now, all slum dwellers are availing the 20KL free water scheme. This has encouraged us to go for cashless transactions,” a Water Board official told reporters.

Accordingly, meter readers will visit each household and serve an electronic copy as well as a manual bill to consumers who can use any of the payment apps available or visit e-Seva or MeeSeva centres to pay their bills.

The HMWS&SB has already introduced a self-billing system where a handful of consumers are taking the meter reading and paying their bill online.

The system allows consumers to take the meter reading, generate instant bills and pay through the HMWS&SB app from any android device.

The system allows consumers to take the meter reading, generate instant bills and pay through the HMWS&SB app from any android device.

To do so, consumers should download the HMWS&SB app from Google Playstore, scan the meter to take the reading and forward it to the Water Board with the payment.

In a positive move, already over 1,200 consumers have downloaded the app and have started paying their water bills online.

 

Advantages galore: - HMWS&SB officials told reporters the self-billing system has its own advantages. “Billing is on time; consumers do not have to wait for the meter reader. The biggest advantage is that consumers will understand their usage pattern better and conserve water. It also empowers the consumers and enables instant payment,” said an HMWS&SB official.