Mangaluru: Come the new year, a private agency is set to take over water billing in Mangaluru, and the difference? consumers in Mangaluru city will get automated SMS alerts on bill amount.

The agency, MN Compu Solutions, was issued a work order on December 20th and will take over from today, but it will take a month for the SMS services to go live. May is the deadline by which all consumers would get the alerts. Interestingly, the system is alive to systemic faults and will alert the consumer if the meter is not functioning – with the message ‘meter not reading’. It then becomes the consumer’s problem to set things right by getting them repaired or installing a new meter within a week, failing which, a reminder would be sent on their cellphones thereafter.

All this comes at the enhanced cost of Rs: 9 per bill as compared to Rs. 7.25 per bill.

But officials justified it on the basis of new features, – the sms alerts, and a software-linked system to assess the consumption of water by each connection on quarterly basis. However, there is a system to impose fine on the agency, if it failed to issue bill to any connection without resultant disputes.

The corporation as per its own data, has on record, 81,527 water connections against 1.10 lakh registered properties. This need not match as apartment complexes have a single connection, whereas individual flats are registered seperatedly.

The new agency would conduct a survey of all water connections for four months from January and maintain the data.