Nov 12, 2010 08:45 AM
6218 Views
I would like to share some of my experience here. We come across many cases of neglect and rank bad services from many public utility services, govt departments, govt owned corporations etc. What are your remedy? Can you do anything to improve the situation?
What about our public utility services like Electricity Supply Companies, Water Supply Companies or Departments, The Postal Department etc.? They never respond to complaints. My experience is that these Govt. owned or financed companies can be moved to act only with proper and effective use of the Right to Information Act. If they do not respond to complaints, the best weapon to fight is to use the RTI Act and follow up the complaint, asking to fix the responsibility, call for details of action taken on the complaints, name of personal responsible to act on it etc, then things will move swiftly. I got very positive results on several issues by using the RTI applications effectively.
Here are two cases:
The water supply in our residential area was done by Kerala Water Authority. It was pathetic, most days the pressure in the line was very low, most of the houses had to go without water. The problem was severe as the city gets water on alternate days only due to general shortage. Our discrete enquiries showed that some employees of the Water Authority were helping a big private hospital nearby by diverting water from the main supply lines so residential areas suffer. I lodged a complaint, neither any reply nor any actions. Our Residential Association also filed complaint. No response. Ultimately I decided to file a petition under Right to Information Act asking for details of action taken on the complaint, the name of the person responsible for water supply in the area, details of distribution lines in the area, how many hours supply are made available to the hospital and how many hours of supply to residential houses etc. It worked beyond my expectations. The concerned Engineer-in-charge of the area came rushing to my home with his assistants, and from the next day the water supply was normal. He was very apologetic and assured that no such problems will be there in the future and gave me his personal mobile number also to contact him in case of any problems in future. They gave an incomplete reply to my RTI petition and I knew I can file an appeal against that as it was incomplete and vague reply, but the Engineer pleaded with me not to press the application further. Since our problem was set right by him with swift actions and he was very co-operative in the matter, I decided not to press my RTI petition further with an appeal to higher authorities.
The second case related to Railways. We had booked online tickets for a train journey from Kundapura in Konkan Railways to Calicut for our family's return trip from a visit to Sri Mookambika temple. Due to a landslide and heavy monsoon, train services were abruptly cancelled on that day and subsequent day also. We had to cancel the train journey at the last moment as there was no train on that day, so traveled by road to Mangalore from Kundapura and from Mangalore Jn Rly Station; we approached the Railways for onward journey to Calicut from Mangalore. They said that our ticket was for another train and we cannot be accommodated in the train originating from Mangalore and going via Calicut. So we purchased fresh tickets and traveled to Calicut from Mangalore. To our request for cancellation of our earlier ticket booked online, they advised us to send it to the Palakkad Divisional Office for refund. I send the request for refund of the unused reserved ticket by Registered Post to the Palakkad Divisional office of the Southern Railways. No response to that for nearly 10 months. Then one day I got a letter from their Chennai Zonal office informing that my request for refund of ticket is rejected by Railways because I did not submit the request within 30 days of journey date. In fact, I had sent the request for refund within 2 days of the journey date. I wrote to them stating the facts, still nothing happened. So I filed petition under RTI act with the Railway’s Palakkad Divisional Office asking for certain details relating to my Refund application including the date of receipt of the same at their office, date-wise-action taken on that and the name of person responsible for taking action on the refund application etc. It worked. The official responsible for that came rushing to my home in Calicut immediately(I stay in Calicut and Palakkd is 3 hours train journey from here, yet the official chose to meet me personally and sort out the problem) He explained that it was their fault and assured me that he will take up the case with Chennai Zonal office personally and also with IRCTC and refund the ticket amount immediately. It was nearly 12 months by this time since I applied for refund. As promised by him, the refund came to my son’s bank account within 10 days after that. The official requested me not to press with filing a complaint with Consumer court for damages and he is ready to settle my demand in that respect if any. I said I have no further demands, as he has taken actions to settle the matter and the matter ended there.
We must do some home work before we lodge an RTI petition and it should be drafted with care. In most cases, fixing up responsibility is the important thing, and then things will move quickly. Visit the website of Central or State Information Commissions and get to know more about how to file an RTI petition and get results. Right to Information Act is presently applicable only to Govt Departments; Govt owned or financed institutions, autonomous bodies who accept Govt. budgetary or other supports. It is time that the Central Government extends the coverage of Right to Information act to Limited Companies in Private sector also because they raise capital from public in general and are accountable to the people. Consumer activists should campaign for that also. Consumer courts are another avenue, where compensation can be sought for deficiency in service or goods.
