Pakistan Post to collect utility bills
Pakistan Post has launched a new service to collect utility bills at customers’ doorsteps for payment through cross cheque. “This unique service started from Karachi as a pilot project will be implemented in phases and later extended to the other cities of the country,” an official at Pakistan Post said here on Friday.
The official said consumers domestic as well as commercial, desirous of making payment through cheque at their doorsteps will handover the utility bill to the postman of their locality along with a crossed cheque by the due date.
He said the crossed cheque should be issued by the consumer in the name of the Chief/Sr Postmaster/Sub Postmasters of GPO/HPO/Sub Post Offices which function as Cash offices at tehsil headquarter and sub-tehsil headquarter level. Cheque should not be post dated, he added.
Postman on collection of the cheque will acknowledge the payment by stamping (specimen of stamp given below) and signing the bill. Cheque number, date of issue, bank and branch on which the cheque is drawn will be recorded in the space provided in the stamp.
The postman will retain the lower portion of the bill (stub) with the cheque and return the remaining part of the bill duly stamped to the consumer. He said postman would only accept the crossed cheque payable at the banks located within the cantonment/municipal limits of the city where the post office is functioning.
The official said the cheque, dishonoured for any reason along with bank intimation slip specifying reasons of dishonour will be returned/delivered to the consumer by the area postmen at their doorstep through recorded delivery and their bill will be treated as “not paid.” He said post office department would receive Rs 20 as home collection charges per bill from the consumer.
Customers can register their request online and send e-mail at [email protected] with the information including name, complete address, phone number to get their bill collected at doorstep. They can also call PPO’s helpline 111-111-117 for any further assistance. Talking about the other project, he said Pakistan Post is expanding its Counter Automation System to all GPOs.
The system aims at computerising the Post office counter and provides state-of-the-art point of sale terminals which can handle all the counter operations and ensures integrated service provision at each counter.
