Nurpur residents irked over lump sum water bill

Rajiv Mahajan

Nurpur, August 6

Resentment prevails among residents, especially poor people of Nurpur town, after they received water bills after a gap of eight months. The Jal Shakti Department supplies piped water to consumers in the town. The department has issued bills to the consumers of Rs 1,328 from August 2020 to March 2021 with monthly tariff of Rs 165.94. From April, they have to pay a revised monthly tariff of Rs 182.54 as the department has been enhancing 10 per cent tariff with each passing year for about 15 years.

The water bills have become a bane for the poor who are unable to pay their bills in one go. Earlier too, the department had issued such bills in August 2020 for six months from February to July last year. A few years ago, the department used to issue these bills for three months.

Praveen Sangalia, Sanjay Hans, Sahil Mehra, Hanumati Raina and Udhit Gandhi, residents of the town, demanded that the Jal Shakti Department should have a quarterly billing cycle, keeping in view the paying capacity of poor residents in the urban area.

As per department sources, the state government had failed to recruit new billing clerks in the department from a long time and the existing billing staff was getting retired with each passing year. Inquiries reveal that only two billing clerks are left in the office of the Assistant Engineer, Jal Shakti Division, Nurpur, who are preparing water bills manually for the urban and rural areas in Nurpur and distributing these door to door to the consumers. The duo is going to retire next year.

Promod Mahajan, the president of Nurpur Sudhar Sabha, has demanded the issuance of bi-monthly water bills like that of electricity and a provision to pay the eight-month bill in two or three installments for poor consumers.

Devinder Rana, Assistant Engineer, Jal Shakti Department, Nurpur division, admitted that the shortage of billing clerks was the reason why water bills were distributed after intervals of six or eight months. He said the department was trying to transfer billing data online and this problem could only be addressed after the launch of an online system of bill generation.