July 08, 2006	Saturday	Jumadi-ul-Sani 11, 1427

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RAWALPINDI, July 7: A seemingly simple and uncomplicated task of paying utility bills is in fact a nerve-wrecking feat as the consumers are made to suffer by having to queue up outside banks, sometimes for hours, in the most unfavourable of the weather conditions.

To make matters worse, users of utility services undergo this trauma at least four times a month as they receive their electricity, gas, telephone and water bills separately and pay them on different dates.

In a world where technology and innovation have solved the uncalled for problems of the people and online payment of bills has become a norm, the bureaucracy in the country is reluctant to initiate any move to spare the people from hardships they are frequently faced with.

“It defies imagination that one has to wait for so long for paying one’s utility bills,” Mr Hamid, who was one of 150 bill payers standing in the sizzling heat outside a bank in Sadiqabad, said.

He said government departments were least bothered about people’s hardships. “I might not even be able to reach the counter to pay the bill because of time constraint,” he said, adding that it meant that he would have to go through the same exercise again.

Government institutions are created with an objective to facilitate people and solve their problems, but here is a situation that flagrantly violates that norm, he said.

Usually, there is only one cashier at a single counter in the bank to collect the bills, and, at the same time, he does other things, too, and the hapless people keep on waiting agonisingly.

Even the women are not spared from the trouble. Amna, a household woman standing in the queue outside the same bank for an hour, told this reporter that she had gotten tired while waiting for her turn. There must be a separate counter for women to pay the bills, she said.

The people in the queue were of the consensus that the consumers should receive all the utility bills on a single date to save them from frequent hardships. They also lashed out at the indifferent attitude of government departments to the problems of the people.