Easy Bill Pvt Ltd, a Hero group company which will offer one-stop solution to utility bill payments to households, commenced operations on Tuesday.

A wholly owned entity of the group, it announced the rollout of its retailer-based network in Delhi and a tie-up with six utility service providers.

The company is aiming to offer a convenient bill-payments service in about 35 cities by 2005.

The bill collection service, which is capable of handling all kinds of transactions (largely cash-based), was put on a trial in 150 retail stores in Delhi.

"We have had an overwhelming response from our trial runs. This would be a win-win proposition for the utility service providers, the customer and the neighbourhood retail store. We are ready to roll-out 1,500 stores in north, south and west India by the end of this year," said Rahul Munjal, CEO, Easy Bill.

The service would operate through the company's backend network which would connect a large number of retailers to a central transaction system who would issue receipts to people depositing the bills on behalf of the bill-issuers.

Retail formats that the company is chiefly targeting are grocery stores, chemist shops and public call offices.

There would be a minimal service-charge in the case of some utility service providers like Tata Power.

"Our goal is to have one 'Easy Bill' outlet per one-kilometer radius in the targeted cities. We expect to generate about Rs 15,000 crore (Rs 150 billion) worth transactions by the end of this year.," said Sandeep Vij, business-head, Easy.

There are plans to have 500 outlets in Delhi by October. Apart from the capital, the company would expand operations in Mumbai and Punjab in 2003. By 2005 it plans to have about 10,000 branded outlets all over the country.

It has so far tied up with NDPL (North Delhi Power Ltd), Essar Hutchison, Bharti Cellular and Touchtel in Delhi and Punjab State Electricity Board (PSEB) and Haryana State Electricity Board (HSEB) in the neighbouring states and plans to collaborate with 18 more service providers by December.

There are also plans to come out with a public offer. The initial volume of investment is not known.

However, about Rs 50,000 is the minimum expenditure incurred for the hardware equipment per store.