Thiruvananthapuram: The KSEB-SBT online bill payment system was officially launched here on Friday. Under the site-to-site integration system, money can be transferred from the bank account of the customer to the KSEB directly in real-time for no cost. For non-SBT customers, they still have the option of the online payment gateway.
However, the gateway arrangement that had been in place since 2013, involves banks as middlemen for whom a service charge has to be paid.
As of now, the service charge is borne by the KSEB. “Certain private banks had come forward to try the site-to-site integration mechanism but had backed out citing technical difficulties,” said KSEB CMD M Sivasankar.
He said that it was highly commendable that SBT had managed to put the mechanism in place in a matter of months.
SBT MD Jeevandas Narayanan said that transactions worth Rs 1 crore had already been done using the system since January 1.
Customers who register their name, mobile number and consumer number with the KSEB under the new arrangement will also be provided with constant updates.
"These registered customers will be the first to know of an outage in their areas. They will also be told when the problem will be rectified," Mr Sivasankar said.
