Chattogram Water Supply and Sewerage Authority (Wasa) collected more than Tk28 crore in revenue in September this year after intensifying its drive to recover outstanding bills.
The government agency responsible for managing public water supply, drainage and sanitation systems raised Tk28 crore 25 lakh 85 thousand in revenue in September, Tk1 crore 45 lakh 85 thousand more than the Tk26 crore 80 lakh collected in August.
Wasa’s figures show that around Tk259 crore in revenue remains outstanding. Government offices owe Tk71 crore 52 lakh, while general customers owe Tk187 crore 43 lakh.
Chattogram Wasa Managing Director Engineer Selim Jane Alam said the authority was placing special emphasis on increasing revenue collection.
Previously, the utility focused on customers with more than Tk50,000 in outstanding bills. The threshold has now been lowered to Tk25,000 to bring more defaulters under the recovery drive, he said.
Over the past two months, Wasa has deployed eight monitoring teams comprising officials from its revenue and engineering departments to step up recovery efforts.
The teams include executive engineers, revenue officers, revenue supervisors and meter inspectors. They visit customers with arrears of more than Tk25,000 to inspect connections, recover outstanding bills and update customer information.
The teams are also collecting information on illegal water connections and unlicensed deep tubewells, according to officials.
Wasa has been conducting mobile court drives to disconnect illegal water connections and taking legal action against owners of unlicensed deep tubewells.
To encourage staff involved in the collection drive, the authority awarded crests to the top three-performing meter inspectors and certificates to members of each monitoring team.
According to Wasa’s September accounts, the utility collected Tk26 crore 19 lakh 25 thousand from water bills. Of this, Tk14 crore 19 lakh 11 thousand came from current bills, while Tk80 lakh 57 thousand came from surcharges, Tk65 lakh 50 thousand from deep tubewell fees and Tk35 lakh 93 thousand from new connections.
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