Dealing with the system
Yup. As I had thought… The DHBVNL (Dakshin Haryana Bijli Vitran Nigam Limited) has indeed cut the power supplies to my house. The reason? The check I had submitted with the bill had some issues (I am sure I put in 2005 instead of 2006 in the date area) and it was dishonored.
They cut the electricity on Sunday. The day their offices are closed! On a freaking Sunday! And I thought the government guys were too busy to do any work on a holiday!
Anyways, I got my taste of the system. Saw everything. Biscuit eating babu who was more interested in finishing his cup of tea than the customers surrounding him. Mobility enabled babu who every now and then got a call from his relatives and he is nice enough to answer them while working on a consumer’s complaint.
Interestingly, the senior most guy (The SDO of the region) was the most polite of the lot. However, the tune from Veer Zaara on his mobile which kept ringing all the freaking time made me nuts while I was standing in his room with my paid bills and an application for reconnection.
There are no guidelines for people like us who have no idea on how to get work done. I mean, there can only be a couple of things, which people have to get done in an electricity department…
1. apply for a new connection
2. getting a connection disconnected (why would one do so? There are no alternatives!)
3. apply for bill correction
4. paying the bills
5. and of course getting a disconnected connection reconnected
Why cannot they have some procedures presented in readable form on some kind of a message board explaining these methods? Why cannot the guys working in the office have some kind of signboards telling us who they are and what we can expect from them?
Another interesting rant I have from these guys. When I went to the office to pay the unpaid dues, the guy on the main collection window told me that they do not accept payments on Saturdays. Apparently, there is another guy inside the office in the backside who accepts payments and he accepts them on Saturdays too! If he had guided me to his place, I would not have faced all these problems. Or I might have had…
Why?
The office has no computers for centralized filling of bills. So, I am sure that even if I had paid the bills on Saturday, the people responsible for cutting the connections would have had no idea that the bills were in fact paid after I was notified about the non-payment.
I am supposed to carry the receipts and store them for future just to make sure that the next time the guys make a mistake and land on my door; I have a proof to show them that I have paid the bills. Why cannot they have a proper system to verify whether this particular house has in fact no unpaid dues?
I traveled from one office to another, one bench to another, one babu to another. I just could not even get the connection fixed after paying the bills and the fine…
Why?
Coz I was supposed to contact the area’s in charge with the proof of bill payment to get him to send some person over to reconnect the connection! So, there is in fact no centralized support center where I can request for someone to send to my place to connect my power supplies!
The dude who was supposed to get the connection reconnected was missing from the office the whole bloody day! At 2 pm, I was told come back at five. When I went to the office at 5 pm, I was told that he had left for Rewari and would only be available the next day.
And we are in fact talking here about essential services! There are laws to make sure that people responsible for maintaining the essential services cannot strike causing problems for the people. However, there are no laws to make them responsible and accountable for their behavior towards the people!
I have thousands of other things to say here about my experiences of the past two days. But, I am tired and frustrated of thinking about this ordeal. I am just happy that I have got my power supplies back. There is no freaking competition for power supplies in India. I used to rant the same about broadband connectivity, and here I was offline for more than 24 hours because I had no power. Interestingly, I had enough bandwidth for a change.
Makes me love Airtel people even more…
[...] Here’s an excellent description by Sushubh about how things work in India. [...]