NEW DELHI: Delhi Jal Board has seen an increase of 1.8 lakh in bills being generated between November 2015 and September this year. This increase includes new connections along with those connections which had meters but were not getting regular bills for various reasons. Because of this, the total revenue collected has gone up from Rs 86 crore in November 2015 to Rs 100 crore in September 2016.“DJB has a two month billing cycle. Since November 2015 till now, we have seen five cycles and in this time itself, the number of bills being generated has risen sharply. By the end of the November cycle last year, DJB had generated bills for 17,07,561 connections. By the end of the September cycle this year, the number of bills being generated went up to 18,87,361,” said an official.Non-revenue water for DJB has been in the bracket of 45-50% over the past many years. This means that for around 50% of the water in its system, DJB earns nothing because the water is either being lost in leakages, is being stolen or bills are not being generated. Despite having moved to a more advanced billing system in the past few months, several residents have still been complaining of receiving bills on average system, which means that their meters are not being read, or they have not received bills at all for several months.“We realise that there are problems in the system and have been trying to address these systematically. Recently we put up camps for rectification of bills. What has also helped is the government’s scheme of giving free water of up to 20 kl. Because of that, several people have converted their unauthorized connections to authorized. The government has also laid new pipelines in several areas where water is now being supplied through pipes instead of tankers or borewells,” said an official.DJB chairperson Kapil Mishra and CEO Keshav Chandra are also keeping a direct watch on billing, ensuring that senior officials go into the field to check at least 15% of the bills being generated in their areas.“We have been asking consumers to send pictures of their bills on WhatsApp in case they are facing problems. Secondly, existing schemes for bill waivers etc have also had a huge impact on metering. After abolishment of mixed category in water billing, small shopkeepers are taking legitimate connections. Decrease in tariff of commercial category has led to mid-size shopkeepers availing benefits of legal connections,” said an official.