City’s potable water supply billing to be outsourced

Mangaluru: The Mangaluru City Corporation (MCC) has decided to outsource the job of billing for drinking water supply in the city to a private agency, to ensure that the process is expedited, and increase revenue.
In fact, the city corporation has been receiving complaints from people, about delays in the meter reading and billing process.
As a result, consumers are made to pay a huge amount at once, when they get bills once in three to four months.
Currently, the multipurpose workers (MPW) employed in its health section, to prevent the spread of malaria and dengue, are given the additional charge of meter reading and billing, in 60 wards of the MCC.
According to sources, water supply bills of 2020-21 and 2021-22, to the tune of Rs 80 crore, are yet to be recovered from consumers. In addition, the city corporation is yet to collect a huge amount, pending towards water supply bills of 2022-23.
While the city corporation has nearly 95,000 water supply connections, about 87,000 are domestic meters.
In addition, the city corporation has also been supplying water to commercial establishments, building construction sites and industries.
Though MPWs were given the additional charge of issuing water supply bills, the process suffered a setback due to the Covid-19 pandemic.
Following this, the city corporation has planned to outsource the water supply meter reading and billing, in all 60 wards of the city, through a private agency.
Mayor Premanand Shetty said that a final decision regarding outsourcing the water supply meter reading and billing, will be taken soon.
“We have received several complaints from people, about bills not being issued on time. This will affect the MCC’s revenue generation. Hence, we have planned to outsource the billing process. We have already discussed the proposal with officials. They have been working on the modalities of outsourcing the process,” he said.
On pending dues in the water supply revenue collection, the mayor said that the actual amount that consumers owe to the city corporation is yet to be ascertained.