The Kerala Water Authority (KWA), in an attempt to improve its services in the capital city, is looking at ways to have water delivered to customers at their doorsteps via Net-banking and SMS.
The move, announced by Water Resources Minister P.J. Joseph during the launch of the Peroorkada section office of the KWA on the Peroorkada-Civil Station road recently, is gaining momentum with the utility already finalising procedures with the State Bank of Travancore. This will enable citizens to pay the required amount of money to the SBT via Net-banking, after which the bank will alert the KWA through a message about the payment so that a KWA water tanker can reach the customer at the earliest. “The bank account for this has been opened and the account number will be made public once the internal alert system is in place,” P. Sreekumaran Nair, Chief Engineer (South), KWA, said.
Steps are also in place to enable customers send an SMS to the KWA on 85476 38181 to book tankers. These facilities are for emergency situations when normal supply is disrupted or for customers who do not have water connections.
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The present system, KWA officials point out, was cumbersome and fraught with delays. Customers would have to make payments at the Vellayambalam office of the KWA and then wait indefinitely. The delays were prompting them to depend on private tankers, which in turn fleeced the public. The new systems, it was hoped, would tackle this issue.
The KWA, according to Mr. Nair, was also in discussion with banks to install card-swiping machines or card readers at its counters to enable customers to use their cash cards to make bill payments. This would help more customers make use of cash counters of the KWA, which now accepted bill payments from all sections. The holiday counter at Vellayambalam, which functioned from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m., was drawing huge crowds, Mr. Nair said. On Saturday, 144 persons paid their bills, totalling over Rs.1 lakh.