On Saturday 10 officials of the Delhi Jal Board were suspended by Delhi Water Minister and DJB Chairman Satyendar Jain.
Issuing an order on Saturday Jain said, “It has come to our notice that some meter readers engaged through an outsourced agency have been found taking wrong readings of various consumers of DJB. The Director (Revenue) is hereby directed to terminate the services of all such meter Readers involved in such illegal activities.”
Further, a show-cause notice has been issued to the concerned outsourcing agency asking why action has not been taken against such fraudulent cases and why the government should not blacklist the company responsible for it.
Further, the Director (Revenue) has been directed to get an FIR lodged against all such officials/Meter Readers for cheating and forgery under the relevant section of law.
It is worth noting that the government had received a complaint in which it was told that meter readers were taking wrong meter readings due to which the bills of the consumers were arbitrarily inflated. As soon as the information was received, Water Minister Satyendar Jain launched an audit to identify the culprits. After that, the Delhi Jal
Board immediately came into action, and after investigating, they caught 10-meter readers taking wrong meter readings and suspended them with immediate effect.
Recently, in view of complaints of wrong meter readings, the Kejriwal government has taken a decision that the water bill of the customers cannot exceed 1.5 times the previous month. If it exceeds this, they will be given an explanation from the Delhi Jal Board and the customer will be able to file a complaint on the same lines.
Apart from this, ‘meter Reading Image Audit’ will be done daily in the system by the Revenue Officers on a random basis. Due to this, the possibility of manipulation in the system will become negligible. This will also remove all the loopholes related to the existing billing system, and the Delhi Jal Board will be held responsible for any mistakes.
Jain said “This is a huge and revolutionary step taken by the Kejriwal government to eradicate corruption and solve the discrepancy existing in the current system. This will also help provide a smooth and transparent billing system for the people of Delhi”.
Recently, Jain had held a meeting with the revenue officials and took the following steps in view of the complaints of wrong water bills.