The Hindu : CM upset over water, power crisis

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Friday, May 17, 2002

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CM upset over water, power crisis

By Sujay Mehdudia

NEW DELHI MAY 16. Upset over the failure of senior DVB officials to monitor the precarious power situation and address the grievances of the public in an effective and efficient manner, the Delhi Chief Minister, Ms. Sheila Dikshit, has put DVB officials on notice and asked them to hit the streets to provide constant feedback about situation on the ground.

Ms. Dikshit, who has been spending almost two hours every morning, personally monitoring the situation on both water and power fronts, was perturbed that DVB senior officials were not aware about the situation on the ground and were taking decisions from their air-conditioned offices. She was particularly upset the way local faults and breakdowns were being handled by field staff. The Chief Minister said the Customer Call Centres had not proved effective and complaints were pouring in about their inefficient functioning, which would not to be brooked.

The Chief Minister particularly upset that despite a major breakdown in the Karol Bagh area, where a 33 kv transformer had tripped and got burnt, neither the Chief Engineer nor other officials of the area had any knowledge of it. Ms. Dikshit is believed to have told senior DVB officials that they would have to make field visits and keep a constant vigil in the handling of complaints. They have to ensure that stores and workshops are adequately equipped with needed raw material to handle any kind of emergency.

``It is unfortunate that people keep calling me up and informing about the indifferent attitude of DVB officials and complaint centres. This is an unfortunate situation and under no circumstances, s would this be allowed to continue. Responsibility has to be fixed for lapses and breakdowns and local faults have to attended to immediately,'' she remarked.

Accepting that there was acute water shortage in the city, Ms. Dikshit said the problem got aggravated by the failure of DVB to provide adequate power supply to pumping stations. She informed the officers that MLAs had been complaining, time and again, that faults were not being attended to promptly and local DVB and DJB officials hardly had any clue to the situation on the ground. It was pointed out that despite adequate power supply, local faults and breakdowns occurred.

On the other hand, the Power Minister, Ajay Maken, called a meeting of DVB officials on Wednesday where the DVB Chairman, Jagdish Sagar, was also present. Mr. Maken was reportedly not happy with the functioning and response of the Customer Call Centres and demanded an immediate report on their working. He is believed to have pointed out that he had a personal experience of failure of these centres to respond to consumer complaints. These centres, he pointed out, had failed to perform their job and need to be refurbished to meet the changed situation.

Mr. Maken, who also sought a complete list of these centres and staff working there, is understood to be preparing for a crackdown on erring officials. It is understood he has decided to make surprise visits during peak hours and late night to check their working. Similarly, the Minister would also be monitoring the functioning of breakdown teams, their response time for a particular complaint and whether they are equipped to deal with any emergency. "The Minister will not inform anybody about his surprise visits. These would be kept a closely guarded secret. Things have to be taken head on,'' remarked a senior official.

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