India Political Blog

How many times have you dreaded the prospect of paying a utility bill. Where the electricity or water is provided by a Government department, the prospect of queuing up outside a dingy office, with a long queue and in the hot sun is one that most people shirk from doing, until absolutely necessary. Hence the concept of either the friendly neighborhood all-purpose man who will do this duty for a price, or the private companies who are making it a business to make it easy to pay utility bills. However, sometimes even the Government can think about citizens, and make it easier for them to pay such bills:

BANGALORE: Ever wanted to pay your utility bills while at a mall or supermarket? This could soon be possible, with the directorate of Electronic Delivery of Citizen Services (EDCS) likely to set up BangaloreOne kiosks at shopping centres soon.

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Electricity billing is not supposed to be a high-tech area, and something that is being done fairly accurately and successfully by a large number of countries. Hence it seems somewhat strange that we see many cities having billing problems in terms of electricity. Seems like a casual attitude, or maybe not enough control over what is happening. Or maybe the powers be have not taken a good look at the problem to come up with a good solution, instead of keeping on trying to find new solutions. One of the signs of good governance is that So, read on as to what the Pune electricity department has to say about why it cannot do billing properly:

Speaking to TOI, Gautam said that the MSEDCL was in the process of switching over from spot billing system — where bills were issued on the spot after taking meter readings — to digital photo reading in the city. “And this transition was leading to many billing complaints,” he claimed.
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In a bizarre case of utmost dereliction of normal working norms by a Government department, a Pune based Colonel, fighting to get regular electricity bills for the past 7 years, was suddenly provided 3 bills for the same period, with a lump sum demanded for the entire period. In addition, the lump sum was different for the 3 different bills, with the even number of units being consumed being different. Now he has to run from pillar to post to try and work this out, with the department being of course least bothered about why this was allowed to happen, and not really caring about helping him out.
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Sometimes one feels that the state of governance in India is really the pits, and we have a long way to go before we can claim to be anywhere near a developed country. We only need to take a look at our critical infrastructure (such as power, water, roads, ports, etc) that are necessary to develop well and provide a good standard of living to our citizens, and to provide a good jumping ground to our industries. It is only the satisfactory development of our industries and economy that can drive up the overall development of the country.
And what is the state of governance in our country? Good governance means being able to provide a good government to people, which in turn breaks down into a number of steps such as being able to provide basic amenities, law and order, and so on. Providing dependable medical care is one of these requirements. But does anybody really think that we are providing a good medical infrastructure to our citizens, especially those who cannot afford the luxury of going to private hospitals. Well, if you do believe that our Governments are behaving well, take a look at this report:
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