MoU signed for delivery and collection of water bills through Post Offices in Odisha circle

MoU signed for delivery and collection of water bills through Post Offices in Odisha circle

Delivery and Collection of water bills on behalf of Engineer-in-Chief, PHEO Odisha, Bhubaneswar under Housing & Urban Development Department, Government of Odisha through Post Offices in Odisha Circle.

Standard Operating and Accounting Procedure

1.           Introduction:

i.          This scheme will be carried out in all HOs, MDGs and S.Os having e Payment facility only in Odisha Circle.

ii.          The water bills will be accepted in the Post Offices only in shape of cash. The counter of   the Post Offices will ensure that at least the Present Bill Amount as mentioned in the Bill is fully collected and no partial amount is permissible for collection. Arrear amount, if any, may be collected fully or partially.

iii.          The data would be stored in a Central Data Server. Authorized users in Post offices can access and do the transactions.

iv.          The Application Software provides options for acceptance of water bills of PHEO Odisha.  Billers are created at   Circle   level on the authority of Head of the Circle.

v.          The Head Post Offices attached in (Annexure-A) have been identified as the Nodal Post Offices for the delivery of BMS articles and also collection and payment of water Bills of PHEO Odisha under e Payment.

vi.          The Nodal Officers will collect the water bills from the identified P.H.Divisions of PHEO Odisha as per Annexure-A of the concerned Urban Local Body (ULB) within 4 (four) working days of the 1^st week of each month and the same will be distributed to consumer within 10^th of each month.

vii.          The Nodal Officers will make necessary arrangement to collect the water bill statements from the identified P.H.Divisions of PHEO Odisha for delivery. The identified P.H.Divisions of PHEO Odisha will make necessary arrangement to handover the BMS articles to the representative of DOP, Odisha before the cut off time.

viii.          The cut off time to receive the Bill Mail Service articles in the identified P.H.Divisions of PHEO Odisha is 10.00hrs.

2.         Mode of payment of bill collection:

(i)           E Payment here allows bill collection only in shape of cash.

(ii)         The   service provider PHEO Odisha who has agreed to avail the service would be available on the computer screen and it would be updated automatically through central server. The interface will be biller specific. Therefore, the bill collection transaction should be done carefully after identifying and selecting the correct biller from the screen.

(iii)       Commission/ transaction fee would be levied as per agreement and this would be configured and a unique biller ID would be created by the   Circle Administrator  based on the area of operation of service for a particular service provider and instruction in this regard will be sent to all concerned.

(iv)        The collections made in the    post offices would be uploaded to central server. If a sub office under a Head post office is designated as e Payment office for a particular biller, its attached HPO shall by default have to be identified as e Payment office for that biller.

3.         Bill Collection:

(i)      E Payment option is inbuilt in Meghdoot software 7.9.4 Version under Financial Services.

(ii)     On accessing the e Payment module, the lists of all biller services for which payments are accepted at the post offices are displayed as selectable option.

(iii)    Counter PA will receive the amount of the bill in cash from the customer.  The Counter PA depending on the biller and mode of payment (by cash only) a customer wants to pay, will select the appropriate biller service option.

(iv)    Biller service specific option payment screen is displayed.

(v)         The counter PA keys in (the Consumer no of the customer and click on fetch button . If the data for the said consumer no is available in the central server , the data in all relevant field will be popped up automatically)   the required payment information with reference to the bill and clicks on PRINT button, after confirming the correctness of the information and complete the entries in other fields also, if any.

(vi)       Receipt is printed on the pre-printed stationery as is being done for BSNL billers. As it is computer generated, no signature of counter staff or date stamp of the office is required to be affixed in both the copies of the computer generated receipt.

(vii)      PA can cancel the payment operation, at any time during the display of the payment entry screen by clicking on the cancel button on the payment entry screen.

(viii)    Counter PA hands over  both the  copy of the receipt to the customer .

(ix)       If the customer failed to submit the  bill and only provide the SMS for  the  bill or only consumer number than  also the  counter PA should  collect the bill  . As there will  be mapping with the central server for all  the biller. After selecting the  biller when the Counter Asst   entered  the consumer number and click on fetch button  the  entire amount  to be  paid by the customer will be fetched by the system and accordingly  the amount to be collected, provided there is  internet connection  in the system to fetch the data from central server.

(x)         At the end of counter transaction, the PA made over the cash to treasurer and after treasurer acknowledge the cash, PA takes print out of submit account. The counter PA should not perform his shift end , until supervisor verifies the submit account data.

(xi)       The Supervisor will login to the Point of Sale and verify the accounts. While verifying the transactions, if the Supervisor finds any mistake, he can cancel the transactions and ask Operator to re-do the transaction. Such action will find a mention in the Error Book with brief of reasons.  Of the newly generated two receipts, both the copy to be  pasted in the Error Book.  .  The correct receipt may be given to the customer in case available and the receipt issued to him earlier will be obtained and cancelled and pasted in the Error Book.

(xii)      Then follow the procedure for transfer cash to treasury and receipt of cash from counter etc. should be followed again. Then supervisor should verify the accounts, as prescribed in the rule books.

(xiii)    After verification, the operator calls Central Server and synchronizes (Sync) the data through epayment communication module. The daily reports (in duplicate) are generated for e Payment transactions for all biller(s) separately and consolidated list for the day.

(xiv)    The Postmaster/Supervisor logs in to the e Payment website (https://services.cept.gov.in/epayment ) and verifies the statistics and amount to confirm that the statistics and amount in respect of his/her office on the Website tallies with the actual transactions done and accounted for in respect of each biller. One copy of each report, duly signed in token of having carried out the prescribed checks, should send to its attached HO duly entered on the back side of daily account. The user ID and password for  checking  e Payment  transaction is :USER ID: dop, password : ePmt

4.         Procedure at the Nodal  Post Office:

(The name of the Nodal Post Offices for payment of cash to PHEO Odisha is attached in Annexure-A as per requirement of the biller and approval of the competent authority.  )

The Sr.PM/PM of the Nodal Post Offices will deposit the cheque issued in favour of the Treasury officer of the District Treasury Office (As per Annexure-A) through a messenger on office arrangement during office hour of the post office daily.   

(i)               PA in the Nodal / Identified Post Office receives biller list from the attached Post Offices   and prepares the consolidation   at his office in a register.

(ii)             The register will be maintained in the Nodal office in the following format, in respect of biller (H & UD Department) who has agreed to pay the commission/ service charges   to be deducted from the amount collected. The entries in the register as per the format given below will be made by PA and duly checked by Supervisor/Postmaster with provision for signature of both of them:-

Date	Name of ePayment office	Bills collected in cash		e Payment commission & service tax		Net amount to be paid after deducting commission & ST	Signature of the supervisor
		Total No.	Total Amount	Total Commission in Rupees	Total Tax in Rupees

(iii)           Postmaster of the Nodal Post Office checks the list with reference to the transaction report (s) and prepares the consolidation and tally the accounts.

5.         Accounting: Sub Office:

(i)         The SO will collect water and sewerage charges directly from the customers.

6.         Head Office :- Sub Accounts Branch:

(i)        After epayment data received from sub offices through daily account, the sub account PA will feed the data in sub account module under the proper head i.e ePayments Receipts.

(ii)       In accounts branch, there is provision in Accounts (PBS) module to prepare the schedule for epayment receipts/payments for submitting the schedule return to account office(DAP) and the PA will prepare the same and compare the schedule figure with subaccount figure for correctness.

7.              Payment to the Biller (by Nodal Office):

(i)              The identified divisions of PHEO Odisha shall deposit in advance every month against Proforma Invoice the amount equivalent to one month expenditure for delivery of water bill statements through (BMS) and service charge plus service tax for collection of water/sewerage charges as per Para-1.5 & 1.13 of MoU signed.

(ii)             The Nodal Post Office will maintain two registers. One for Bill Mail Service articles tendered for delivery and another for collection of water/sewerage charges through e Payment.

(iii)           The monthly expenditure for delivery of BMS articles will be deducted from the advance deposit made by respective PHEO Odisha and it will be strictly maintained in the register.

(iv)           Similarly, for collection of water/sewerage charges the total amount so collected will be paid to the respective PHEO Odisha without deducting the service charge.

(v)             The service charge due to be collected from the respective PHEO Odisha shall be deducted from the advance deposit made by respective PHEO Odisha.

(vi)           At the time of making payment through Treasury module, system will automatically deduct the service charge and service tax as per the configuration done at the time of biller creation. The treasurer will make payment through cheque for the system generated net amount . Another cheque will be prepared by the treasure  and  paid to PHEO for the deducted amount (service charge+servicetax deducted at the time of making payment) from the corpus fund provided to DOP earlier  by PHEO ,

(vii)      The Nodal Office will ascertain the amount of payment to biller from the Treasury Mode.

(viii)     The   Nodal Post Office will (make payment) transfer to the biller the net amount arrived from the treasury mode which will automatically deduct the  service charges and service tax, as applicable on the date/day as agreed to or as mentioned in the Agreement. This amount should also be tallied with Cash Account maintained at HO.

(ix)           Payment will be made by Account payee cheque to the biller along with the details of total amount collected less service charges and service tax deducted and the net amount due to the biller. The frequency (daily) of payment will be as per the agreement entered into with that particular biller.

(x)             The commission /service charges deducted by the Nodal office at the agreed rate will be accounted for under the head “Commission on Cuttack-WBC” and the Service Tax under head “Service Tax”.

8.               At   DAP Office:

 i.                The accounting procedure customized for e Payment for other billers may be followed

9.               MIS

(i)         MIS report in respect of each bill separately for   Cash.

(ii)        MIS for e Payment bill or fees acceptance offices contains details of bills accepted in that office (The details should tally with the details in the daily transaction report of that office).

(iii)       MIS for the Nodal Post Office for the transactions of attached e Payment offices.

(iv)       MIS for the Nodal paying office, Biller, Division, Region, Circle and Directorate.

All SSPOs/SPOs will go through the contents of MOU signed between the DOP and PHEO, Odisha for successful implementation of the project.