Hyderabad, August 30: “I have been sitting in the dark since the past few days, just hoping that the APCPDCL employees act on my complaint,” sighs Ghulam Dastagir of Natraj Nagar.
Mr Dastagir had filed a complaint with the Sitarambagh Sub-station, that the loose connections from the power supply line to his electricity meter is leading to sparks, making it unsafe for him to even think about switching on the lights.
Mr Dastagir says, “an Electricity Board employee can solve the matter within five minutes, since it involves opening the meter cover and tightening a couple of screws. I could have had it done by a private electrician by paying around Rs 20 five days ago, but the seal on the meter prevents me from doing so.” Mr Dastagir says that he has no electricity bills pending and he has always been a prompt payer.
He is ruing the fact that he had approached the competent authority to get the task done.
Mr Dastagir is not the only person in the city who rues attempt to get his problems solved by following the specified procedures. A complaint to the designated authority invariably takes so much time and running around that citizens are increasingly wary of filing a complaint.
His calls to the toll free number ‘155333’ provided by the authorities have resulted in the accumulation of complaint numbers. The complaint numbers; 2036, 742 and 3375 and some he has not bothered to write down are evidence of the lethargy of the 24×7 consumer helpline.
What annoys Mr Gulam Dastagir was that despite spending five days in the dark, his complaint has not yet ‘reached’ the Sitarambagh Sub-Station officials.
As in the case of the APCPDCL, the Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation (GHMC) and the Hyderabad Metropolitan Water Supply and Sewerage Board (HMWSSB) are also well known to lead the consumers up the garden path.
The Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation (GHMC) officials are seemingly eager to raze citizen’s ancestral properties and Historical Monuments, in the name of road widening or illegal constructions, while the city roads are littered with garbage and dotted with potholes.
As reported earlier, residents of Nampally and Aghapura have been crying hoarse for drinking water even as monsoon have wreaked havoc and the authorities have been forced to release water from many reservoirs in the state.
Complaints to the Hindinagar Water Board over the inadequate water supply have yielded in a virtual tussle between the residents and the officials. The Water Board officials claim that they will rectify the problems if the residents clear their pending bills, while the residents remain adamant that no bills would be cleared since they did not receive any water.
——–INN