Seven months after the Hyderabad Metropolitan Water Supply and Sewerage Board streamlined its billing process, its revenue collection has gone up by ₹8.56 crore.
While the board collected an average revenue of ₹87.22 crore per month in 2017, by July this year it collected ₹95.78 crore revenue per month. The revenue performance is expected to further improve in the coming months, the board’s revenue officers told Managing Director M. Dana Kishore, in a revenue meeting organised on August 20.
Starting January, the board increased the number of billing dockets from 613 to 1,167. While earlier, each docket contained 2,000 to 3,000 individual connections for billing, starting January this year each docket was left with only 750 to 1,000 connections. The billing agents were asked to complete billing within the first 15 days of each month. The last 15 days were earmarked for bill collections.
In the first three months of this year, the board did not make a huge increase in revenue despite the new billing cycles.
New to system
“All billing agencies were new and they needed some time to learn the process and do it efficiently. From the fourth month, April, onwards there was increase in revenue,” Mr. Kishore said.
From January to March this year the revenue increased from ₹80.71 crore to ₹87.19 crore. This year, the average revenue collection per month was ₹95.78.
In 2017, the board was collecting ₹15.45 crore in Single Window Counter and ₹1.98 crore in tankers per month. In 2018, till July, average revenue per month for tankers is ₹2.70 crore. In total, the board’s revenues increased from ₹104.66 crore to ₹115.75 crore.
Speaking to The Hindu, Vijay Kumar Reddy, Director, Revenue of the board said, “Earlier the billing agents used to issue bills for 25 days in a month. This left them little time to collect payments. When we reduced the number of individual meters they had to bill, their efficiency has also increased”.
The board, however, expects all payment collections to end within 28 days, soon. By the end of 2018, revenue figures of the board are expected to up by ₹5 crore.