Hyderabad: Water Board makes it tough to pay bills

Hyderabad: With banks and service providers joining hands together, automatic bill payment of utilities have gained ground in the city. Working professionals have jumped onto this bandwagon en masse as it is secure and saves time.
However, when it comes to water bills, residents of the city have not been as fortunate.

Telephone, credit card and electricity bills are paid through the automatic route.
However, when it comes to water bills, there is no online payment system connected to bank accounts. This has let down lakhs of consumers in the twin cities.

The Hyderabad Metropolitan Water Supply and Sewerage Board (HMWS&SB) and Secunderabad Cantonment Board, which supply drinking water to the city, do not have automatic bill payment facility from banking accounts.

An SCB consumer has to log on to the SCB website, type the UCN (unique consumer number) and proceed to the banking gateway for payment of monthly bills.

It would be convenient if the water bill is automatically deducted from bank accounts, opined a colony resident. The SCB also does not have the option of a spot payment at the time of handing over the monthly bill.

In the automatic bill payment method, user gets an alert via sms or e-mail every month after which the bill amount is automatically deducted from the bank account.

When asked about this, S.V.R.Chandrashekar, CEO of SCB, stated that the board has to initiate talks with banks to start the automatic bill payment facility. In the case of HMWS&SB, which has over 9.2 lakh water connections in the twin cities, consumers will have to log on to board website or Mee sevas to pay monthly bills.

Vijay Kumar Reddy, director (revenue), stated that the board is exploring the of automatic bill payment route for HMWS&SB users.