brand logo

Water Supply and Drainage Board: Digitalises services to improve customer service

05 Mar 2022

By Sarah Hannan Water is a basic need of any living organism and providing clean potable water for its citizens is placed among the topmost responsibilities of a government. While pipe-borne water supply is very common among cities and townships, there are still households and public institutions in Sri Lanka that rely on natural springs and tube wells and even water supply through bowsers. Given that the country is witnessing an increase in water pollution as the natural streams are blocked with mismanaged garbage dumps and untreated wastewater is released to canals and lakes by factories and the agriculture industry, it is important that the water we consume should be obtained through a treatment process. Moreover, the wastewater that is generated in our households, factories, and other establishments too needs to be disposed of to the environment ideally after it goes through a treatment process. All this is at present handled through the National Water Supply and Drainage Board. The Sunday Morning spoke to NWSDB Deputy General Manager Commercial P.A. Piyal Pathmanatha on the steps that they have taken to ensure that citizens are supplied with clean potable water for consumption and how they are keeping up with the digitalisation that is going on to provide seamless services to its consumers. Speaking about the collective plan the NWSDB is rolling out till 2025, Pathmanatha noted: “The five-year plan implemented in 2020 is based on the vision to become the service provider that achieves service excellence through technological advancements and provide excellent customer service to its client base.” NWSDB is on a mission to serve the nation by providing sustainable water and sanitation service solutions to ensure customer satisfaction. Given that it is at the mid-point of the five-year plan, it has adopted a Consumer Charter to serve its clients efficiently. “As the pandemic hit the country we had to enhance the digital service offerings of the waterboard and in that regard we worked to improve our website and add customer support services so that customers are able to get in touch with our technical team during service breakdowns. In addition to that, we also introduced a ‘smart zone’ tab for consumers to check their billing information and even make online payments directly to the waterboard through ebis.waterboard.lk/smartzone,” Pathmanatha explained. Apart from that, the NWSDB has launched the NWSDB Self-care mobile app to make the service more accessible for its customers as well. Moreover, new customers now have the convenience of ordering/registering a new water supply connection online. Following this the NWSDB will send their technical team to gather the necessary information from the consumer and enable them to make payments using credit/debit cards through NWSDB’s field service mobile app. Pathmanatha added: “We wish to extend the services to consumers later for bill payments as well. When they are delivered the water bill, they can settle the bill immediately without having to visit our offices. We will also entertain card payments at our billing counters and are working on implementing card payments at our collector counters at no extra charge (service fee).” Facilitating bill payment
  1. Pay water bills through ATM/CDM/CRM and Pay&Go machines established by various banks and financial institutions. In this case, the relevant banks or financial institutions have to set up the required IT and communication facilities and a facility fee will be charged to the customer for providing those services.
  2. Credit cardholders can also set up Automatic Bill Settlement (ABS) via standing orders.
For this facility, the total amount due per month (total due) of any of the water customers registered with the relevant bank will be sent as an automated email to the relevant bank as soon as each billing cycle is processed. If there is a sufficient balance in the cardholders’ credit card, the relevant bank will recover the value of the relevant water bill and forward it to the National Water Supply and Drainage Board. No facility fee will be charged for this from the National Water Supply and Drainage Board or the water consumer.  In keeping with technological enhancements, the NWSDB is working with Lanka QR to establish payment facilities using QR codes with the approval of the Central Bank of Sri Lanka and is to be made available in the coming months.  For those who do not have access to the internet or computer facilities, the Water Board has also appointed a 24-hour Call Centre (1939) with modern IT and communication facilities to improve water consumer services. Apart from that, consumers can also register for SMS services by calling 0719399999 to receive updates of their bill, payment links, and confirmation of payment SMS. “All this will be made possible as we transform the analogue water metres into digitised metres. This will also eliminate the human errors that occur when metre readers share the data with the Computer Department to update our internal billing platforms,” Pathmanatha elaborated. In conclusion, Pathmanatha added that the NWSDB was also working on introducing a special concessionary water tariff plan for consumer categories that fall under approved charities, community lands, schools, Samurdhi recipients, and low-income housing dwellers. Apart from that, as a measure to ensure the health and safety of consumers, the NWSDB is also conducting continuous water quality testing in accordance with the standards of the Sri Lanka Standards Institution to ensure water quality. Special payment facilities introduced Given that many households still do not have pipe-borne water supplied to their households the NWSDB stated that it had introduced special payment facilities under the ‘Samata Jalaya’ National Programme (Accelerated New Connection Programme), which would allow new customers to:
  1. Facility to book a new water connection by paying an initial deposit of Rs. 5,000 before laying the carpet.
  2. Obtain a loan facility provided by SANASA Development Bank by paying an initial deposit of Rs. 2,500.
  3. For Bank of Ceylon credit card holders, make the new water connection estimated payment to the National Water Supply and Drainage Board and obtain zero interest premium facility. 
  4. Mobile Payment Machine (MPOS) facility for card payment at customer premises.
  5. Obtaining the facility to pay the balance in 12 instalments by paying an initial deposit.
  6. Financial assistance from the Board Community Care Fund (NWSDB CSR Fund) to provide new water connections to low-income families and government schools established by the National Water Supply and Drainage Board.
  7. Providing water facilities to all schools without water facilities through funds provided by the Ministry of Education.
  8. Providing water facilities to all temples without water facilities through funds provided by the Ministry of Buddha Sasana.
  9. Providing water facilities to low-income earners who do not have water facilities by the divisional secretariats.
  10. Providing new water connections at concessionary rates through concessionary loan facilities provided by Samurdhi banks.
  11. Providing one water connection to Government schools free of charge.
 


More News..