Monitoring bills

Last month I had complained about the late receipt of gas bills in Sector I-8/3 of Islamabad (just one day before the last date of payment), on the website of SNGPL and in these pages (April 23). There was no acknowledgement or response to my complaint from the gas company or any other quarter. This month also, the bill for April 2019 with last date of payment of May 21 was delivered late, some time in the forenoon of May 20, when people were at work. My previous complaint seems to have fallen on deaf ears and I am not sure if anybody will take notice of this complaint as well.

An efficient organization should have an in-house monitoring system to watch the performance of its functionaries. But such management practices are not known to our public sector organisations. Every household in Pakistan is affected by the performance of gas and electric companies which are monopolies under public control. They should not be allowed to torture the public with inflated bills for instant payment at the eleventh hour. I would therefore request the concerned authorities to establish a regular system of monitoring the distribution of bills by utility companies all over Pakistan, allowing reasonable time of a week to ten days for payment, and take remedial measures whenever and wherever there are lapses. This will produce enormous goodwill for the government without any investment.

Abdul Majeed

Islamabad