LAHORE: The Water and Sanitation Agency (Wasa) is allegedly fleecing its customers through inflated and fixed bills or charging them with huge amounts on the basis of assumptions or wrong estimation.

On the other hand, Wasa has miserably failed to install water meters and continue charging the consumers with huge monthly fixed bills starting from nearly Rs1,600 per month (up to five marla house), Dawn has learnt.

`For the last few years, Wasa seems to be becoming a mafia that receives extortion from the people, deplores a consumer while talking to Dawn on Friday.

Telling his ordeal briefly, he said that a few months ago, he received aheavy bill from Wasa and approached a senior official in the agency. After a thorough scrutiny of the case, the officials realised their mistake and reissued the bill by cuttingtheadditionalamounts.Finally, a correct bill was issued to him with installments.

`I started paying bills in installments. But around seven days ago, two Wasa teams separately visited my business place and told my employee that the bill already settled/decided was not correct.

`I don`t know what they (Wasa people) want now since I have already been paying my bill in installments. They (the officials) told my employee to visit the office.

Perhaps they want to `manage` the things,` he said while expressing his doubts over the suspicious behaviour of Wasa officials.

Talking to Dawn, another con-sumer also complained about the inflated bills, accusing the authorities of misusing their powers in collection of revenue. According to him, a couple of months ago, he started a small business of mineral water at a shop by getting a water connection installed.

`But just after a few months, I received a heavy bill of about Rs1.2m. I was really shocked to see such a huge bill since my whole sale in a few months was not even less than half of the total bill. When I complained, the officials didn`t hear me, warning me to either pay the bill or face disconnection of the water supply,` he explained. He also complained about the rough attitude of senior and junior Wasa officials while dealing with the complaints.

While complaining, yet another consumer also criticised the Wasa management for doing nothingexcept making life of the people difficult.

`We also had received a huge bill a few months ago. We tried hard to convince the Wasa management but to no avail,` he criticised, demanding the CM to intervene and look into the Wasa affairs that were deteriorating fast.

Meanwhile, the consumers have complained about fixed bills, demanding the authorities concerned to better install meters to measure quantity of the water they are using.

`Under the law, rules and regulations, no utility organisation, including Wasa, is allowed to charge the consumers with a fixed bill. It is highhandedness with the public at large,` commented a consumer.

Wasa Managing Director Ghufran Ahmad dispelled the impression, stating that though Wasa`s directo-rates concerned were not 100pc right, the consumers` claims were also not correct.

`When the people don`t tell us about their water pumps installation date and use of water, we send them heavy bills as a punishment.

But when they approach us, we correct their bills,` he argued.

To a question, he said, most of the consumers would tell lies but a probe into charges leveled by them would prove incorrect. He said he had made a task force to take action against the officials treating the consumers unfairly.

To another question, he said there were many connections that were already metered but Wasa had a plan to meter all connection under a phased manner.

`We have over 800,000 consumers.

For them, we are purchasing 400,000 meters soon in phase-1,` he added.But the consumers rejected the Wasa MD`s stance and criticised the agency`s administration for charging them heavily for poor service.

`In many areas, Wasa has been supplying contaminated water mixed with sand and other dirty particles. Similarly, the situation of Wasa`s drainage system is also very bad as there are a lot of incidents wherein many children fell into the uncovered manholes and many suffered because of the rupture of sewerage and water pipelines on roads, a consumer complained while lashing out at the Wasa management.

`I demand CM Maryam Nawaz to issue an order for a special audit of Wasa (right from the appointment of senior officials) to look into their competence in operations, revenue collection, launch and completion of development schemes and corruption,` he said.