Women SHG members to act as water bill collector

HYDERABAD: The Hyderabad Metropolitan Water Supply and Sewerage Board is planning to utilise services of women Self-Help Groups (SHGs) for spot billing and revenue collections.Presently, the Water Board utilises services of a few hundred women members from SHGs for lifting water samples to check the water quality and presence of residual chlorine. They are paying a monthly honorarium of `500 per month. Now, the Board wants to extend billing to SHGs as well. HMWS&SB officials told Express that many SHGs are not in a position to pay a minimum deposit of Rs 30,000 for each docket, so their deposit will be reduced by 50 percent.For smooth billing, each operations and maintenance section is sub-divided into dockets. Each docket consists of around 1000 to 1500 Consumer Account Numbers (CANs) and there are around 400 dockets in the city limits. The Water Board is planning to use hand-held online electronic point of sale (EPOS) machines for bill collection and use members of women SHGs as bill collectors.It must be noted that private agencies are already doing the work of bill collections and for each transaction, the HMWS&SB pays Rs 10 per CAN.  The Board plans to give Rs 15 per transaction to women SHGs, so that their income can be increased.