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A hung verdict...

R. Desikan

Chennai Telephones was recently forced to eat humble pie when the District Consumer Disputes Redressal Forum (South) ordered the arrest of its Chief General Manager for disregarding the forum's decision awarding compensation to an aggrieved consu mer. The arrest warrant was subsequently stayed by the State Consumer Disputes Redressal Commission.

In my opinion, the negligence of lower-level officials have brought a bad name to the organisation. For instance, the department had, some time ago, installed several telephone instruments in a small town near Hosur in Tamil Nadu. But, according to a gro up of affected consumers, the line connections have not been provided till date. Adding insult to injury, the ``subscribers'' are sent a bill every two months for rental charges! So is the rental meant for the instrument and not for the connection?

I was approached by the aggrieved persons and, even as I was working on the complaint, the Union Communications Minister had put out a big advertisement in the newspapers stating that he would attend to every complaint of subscribers. He even went to the extent of publishing his phone and fax numbers in Delhi (now, who will pay for the STD?). We sent a package containing copies of bills, correspondence etc. in connection with our complaint.

Six months have passed and we are yet to receive a response. In the meantime, the honourable Minister has had the time to announce a free phone for every telecom employee in the country (hopefully, these will work) at an estimated cost of Rs. 1,200 crore s.

The silver lining to these developments has been the Consumer Forum's order against the telecom official which proves that nobody, however big and powerful, can escape the Consumer Protection Act. But what takes the shine off this silver lining is the pe rceived attitude of the various public utilities and their standing counsel who go in for appeal after appeal and delay the process of consumer justice.

If employees, at whatever level, cannot be controlled or disciplined, such a utility must be made efficient either by changing the ownership or creating competition. Even though I am sceptical about competition in this country as it exists only on paper and is often cartelised, it is nevertheless better than an inefficient and corrupt utility.

I know of several instances where the telephone linesman refuses to give the connection or repair a fault unless his palm is greased. On complaining, the General Manager merely throws up his hands and says he cannot do much. If the top officials cannot c orrect a system then do they have the right to occupy such high positions?

Let me wind up this sorry tale with an interesting quote from Keemat, the magazine of the Consumer Guidance Society of India, Mumbai.

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A nine-year-old boy at Sunday school was the only one to respond correctly when the teacher asked the class about the story of Jonah. After his accurate summary of Jonah, the teacher complimented him on being the only student who had read the Bible lesso n that week. Painfully honest, the boy corrected the teacher.

``I didn't read the Bible,'' he explained. ``It was on a bubble gum wrapper.''

The author is former chairman, Federation of Consumer Organisations, Tamil Nadu. He can be reached at rdesikan@vsnl.com