Now, pay water, power bills online

Tribune News Service

Chandigarh, July 30

Now, city residents can pay the water and electricity bills online.

UT Adviser Vijay Kumar Dev today inaugurated the e-payment portal, www.samparkchd.nic.in, on which residents can easily make online payment of their electricity and water bills. The Adviser said in the coming days, this facility would be available through an app as well.

The Adviser said soon many other services would be included in the list. The Administration would "increase adoption of e-services by the public and minimise the citizen interaction with the department". More such e-payment facilities would be available to the public before October 2. This would result in an efficient and transparent citizen-centric service delivery, he said.

He directed officials to provide the facility of payment of lease money by allottees of various properties at e-Sampark Centres.

IT Secretary SB Deepak Kumar said this facility would offer a range of payment options such as net banking, debit card and credit card through which electricity and water bill payments could be made. With the launch of this facility, net savvy citizens could now pay their bills with a click of the mouse while sitting at home or anywhere without visiting any e-Sampark Centre, he said.

IT Director Prince Dhawan said the e-payment portal had been developed in-house by SPIC and the e-payment service was being provided in association with the PNB through their payment aggregator PayU for collection of electricity and water bills. At present, 42 banks had been added for making e-payment through net banking whereas the e-payment could be made through the debit/credit card of any bank, he said.

Compare addl charges with states, UTs: Dev 

On the point of additional charges during the e-payment facility, the UT Adviser told officials of the IT Department to compare these with other states. The Adviser was told that in Madhya Pradesh and Haryana, the government bore the burden of the additional charges instead of putting the burden on the residents. However, IT Department officials maintained that there was a difference between UT and states. The Adviser told them to study other models and try to minimise the additional charges.