Chairman Sindh Irrigation and Drainage Authority (SIDA) Qabol Muhammad Khatiyan has said that the water cess of irrigation has been the same for decades, however, it should be increased to cover expenses incurred on the irrigation system. While chairing the 57th meeting of the SIDA board here on Thursday, he said that the water cess of the irrigation department has been collected the same for decades due to which the government was spending more and earning less than its set target. He directed all Directors of water Boards to speed up the process of water bill recovery and arrears. The Managing Director SIDA Pritam Das said that the main obstacle in the recovery of the water bill was lack of awareness about reward and punishment, and it is a big reality that the shortage of staff despite having a lengthy area for recovery, however, with increasing the number of staff no major breakthrough would be made until modifying recovery system. He further said that SIDA was working on introducing an electronic billing system for recovery which could be implemented soon. MD directed Transition General Manager Ghulam Mustafa to fulfill the required necessities for electronic billing so that such a system could be implemented within two weeks and a summary to be moved to the irrigation department for recovering water cess in Sindh. Coordinator of Project Coordination and Monitoring Unit (PCMU) Nazeer Essani said that the rate of water cess should be increased.