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![[Online utlility services are taking the pain out of domestic chores]](19lead.gif)
Anita Bora
Gone are the days when you had to wait in a queue for three long hours to pay your electricity bill. Or when you had to visit at least four counters at your local telephone office to get a 'new phone line' application form. With several utility services going online, paying bills and filling forms and tracking files has never been easier.
Remember the days when you had to run to the train station every time you wanted to make a booking or find out the status of a train? Indian Railways are online now and allow you to check ticket status by PNR number, train fare, break-journey rules, booking locations and information about special trains. The site has lots of features to make life easier for the Indian traveller. However, it still does not offer online booking of tickets.
The first time Prabal Dowerah applied for a phone here in Mumbai he had to take two days off from work. Now, while applying for his second connection he has had it much easier. Prabal downloaded forms from the MTNL site and located the relevant exchange online. "This time I spent only one morning submitting the form at the MTNL office," says Prabal.
The Mahanagar Telephone Nigam already offers phone customers in Delhi the facility to pay their bills online. Users of MTNL's Dolphin cellular service can also access and view their bills. According to a spokeperson from the Mumbai office, this online payment facility will be offered to residents of this city too in another 3-4 months.
VSNL is another service that allows online registration, renewal and access of the billing details to users. You can use Net banking options supported by Citibank and HDFC Bank to pay your VSNL Internet account bills.
Another service that has been a boon for Mumbai residents is the Brihan Mumbai Electric Undertaking. You can now download application forms and get information on bill collection centres. Registered users can get a graphical representation of annual electricity consumption and also pay bills online.
A new feature of the BEST site will prove very useful for bus travellers. The 'route network' allows you to search by area, bus number and even special categories like hospitals, airports and excursions. I did a quick search for the bus that will take me from Mahim to Borivili and immediately got the result: 202Limited! No more looking up complicated booklets and asking strangers on the road.
BSES has also has created a consumer services site which offers online viewing and payment of bills, new connection enquiries, registration of complaints among other services.
Shraddha Sarmah, an NRI based in Seattle illustrates what a boon money transfer online has been for her. "Earlier, sending money to my Mom in India was a difficult affair since she had to run to the bank and the whole process would take close to a month."
Today, with sites like remit2india.com and cash2india.com, NRIs like Shraddha can easily log on to the Internet and get money transferred at the click of a mouse.
V Shankar keeps forgetting to pay his LIC premiums on time. He is extremely excited by the facility that LIC now offers its customers to pay their premiums online. LIC does not offer its own payment system but has tied up with the Net banking facilities of ICICI, HDFC, UTI Bank, Bank of Punjab, Times of Money and Bill Junction.
One-stop bill payment services like Bill Junction have also made life easier for people on the run. It has tied up with over 70 billers, spread across the top eight metros, Bill Junction aims to be the single-window payment counter.
This means, a person can choose to pay almost all his bills from this particular service by registering with them. Their tie-ups include MTNL (Delhi, Mumbai), BEST (Mumbai) Airtel, Orange, Spice, Satyam (ISP), ICICI Credit Card, LIC, Prundential, Max New York Life amongst others. Not only does Bill Junction offer bill payment services, it is a complete bill management service, says Sumit Chopra, manager, marketing.
Despite the convenience of this service, people have not been too forthcoming about online bill payment. Says Preeti Jayaraman, copywriter in an advertising agency, "I have never been comfortable with paying bills online, probably because I still have some doubts about my transactions."
According to Chopra the most bills get paid for electricity, telephone and cell phones. "There are distinct reasons for them like the periodicity of bills - monthly, and the associated hassles to pay these bills. Where the bill amount is fixed. Example: Insurance premium, it tends to get paid through the auto-pay mode."
People are still not comfortable about the medium of service because of misplaced notions about safety of transactions on the Net, says Chopra. "They easily give their credit card to the waiter in a restaurant, who is in a far better position to misuse the card. But when it comes to the Internet, they hesitate to use their card in spite of the transaction being done in a sercured, encrypted environment facilitated through payment gateways."
The challenge is being overcome by making people more aware of the benefits of these services. The latest step of this process by Bill Junction was an education drive at all collection centres of MTNL in Mumbai, wherein the customers coming to pay the bills were explained about the benefits of online bill payment.
Despite its slow adoption, Chopra is enthusiastic about the growth rate for this service and feels the market is maturing fast.
Busy executives like Prabal swear by this service. "I feel so much more tension-free now without having to remember whether I paid my bills in time. I save at least one or two days every month, which I would have spent hassled, standing in queues."
There's more in store for online bill payers: You can now pay electronically for magazine subscriptions, gas connection and even school and college fees in select cities.
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