The Ganakeekrutha Grahakara Seve (BGS) is the revenue billing and collection system of Bangalore Water Supply and Sewerage Boards (BWSSB), and is delivering a range of government-to-citizen (G2C) services to more than five lakh citizens of Bangalore. It is managed by 26 sub-division offices through a well-connected LAN.




Bangalore is one of the fastest-growing cities in Asia and the IT hub of India. The people of Bangalore were using open wells, lakes and kalyanies as water sources prior to 1896. The water supply was managed by the city corporation till 1964, and later handed over to BWSSB. Before computerizing the revenue billing activity, manually-written and often innacurate bills were issued, giving an unclear picture of consumption etc. to the consumer. The accuracy level in case of manual billing was low. Manual ledgers maintained by ledger clerks were error-ridden. MIS reports required to improve the overall efficiency were not available.
BWSSB's Ganakeekrutha Grahakara Seve, the revenue billing and collection system of BWSSB, is delivering many G2C services to more than five lakh citizens of Bangalore through 26 sub-division offices connected by LAN.

Services offered at these centers are transparent, empower people, and provide a more responsive and empathetic administration. Stakeholders, including officers of Bangalore Water Supply and Sewerage Board, Bangalore-One (single window collection system), banks handling electronic clearance, government officials, citizens, system-integrators and vendors who helped put together and later support the BGS System, were consulted at different stages in the project. An IT team was formed to review the SRS and progress of the project executed by National Informatics Centre (NIC), Bangalore. The application was tested by a third party identified by BWSSB, before rolling out to sub-divisions. The project has now been deployed in the sub-divisions. Feedback from all levels was collected and used to improve the application regularly.

The revenue billing and collection process has been computerized so that consumers get error-free bills that they are able to pay at a convenient time and place. The billing and collection process is highly secure and transparent. SPOT billing has been introduced. GIS based customer details are maintained for all the sub-divisions, and the top management can get accurate demand collection and balance at any point of time.
BGS strives beyond public expectations in setting the standards of service. Pre-fixed reading days for meter readers, monitoring of abnormal and subnormal consumption, issuing of bills showing detailed demand and the previous month's collection details, are a few unique services offered by the BGS System. A different level of security is maintained in the system: bills are secured by BARCODE and the cash-counter information is encoded with the MAC address of the system. Biometric authentication is implemented for major operations, and audit trailing is enabled for major events. The collection centers of BGS include 74 kiosks accepting cash/cheque, Bangalore One, cash counters attached to each subdivisionm and an ECS clearance system. Collection data is captured at the above centers through the barcode reader, and transmitted to the head office. From the head office, the data is posted to the respective subdivisions through SQL replication. Anywhere-anytime payment is an additional facility provided to citizens. The system manages the collection facility through SQL Merge Replication Technology which runs 24X7. Single bill with multiple payments and multiple bills with single payment are also accepted at these centers.

These facilities have led to a sustained increase in collection, and the system is benefiting both customers and the department. Based on this success, the department has an integrated workflow-based New Water Connection Module and SPOT billing, which increases openness and transparency in billing. The department’s functioning has become faster and more foolproof. Customers can also lodge their grievances through the BWSSB website and IVRS system

For further details, contact:

Mr. P. B. Ramamurthy, IAS
Chairman, BWSSB
Ist floor, Cauvery Bhavan, BWSSB
K. G. Road, Bangalore, Karnataka - 560009
Ph: 080-22945100 | Fax: 080-22945101
Email: chairman@bwssb.org

Mr. R. Vasudevan
Chief Engineer, Quality Assurance, BWSSB
Cauvery Bhavan, Bangalore
Phone: 080–22945103 | Mobile: 098454 44003