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Is this right to information?
A friend purchased a property in the heart of town a couple of decades ago. The address that was registered at the time was 1st Cross Street, Vijayaraghavachari Road. A few years later he did nothing about it when the address was changed, unbeknownst to him, to 1st Cross Street, Vijayaraghava Road. More recently he found another change. A street sign indicated that his address should now be Vijayaraghava 1st Street. It wasn't too long afterwards that he found that the street sign read differently yet again. It read Vijayaraghava 1st Lane. When he sold the property recently and went with the buyer to register the sale, it was pointed out to him that his road was now called Vijayaraghava Lane. What was his correct address, he is still wondering, since no one had ever officially informed him about the changes?
Just as he was not informed about the change of road name, he was never informed by the same authorities when they changed his house number. He lived in a complex of five houses, entry to which was through one main gate. When house numbers were changed a few years ago, there were only four numbers marked at the gate. This was pointed out to the assessor when he came around; which of these numbers is mine, and whose house doesn't have a number, my friend had asked. He never got an answer. All this led to quite a debate at the Registrar's — particularly as there's no number at all on the gateposts now — before everyone was convinced that everything was in order.
The right to information becomes rather meaningless in such contexts. In fact, lack of information seems to be the order of the day. The other day, friends told the lady of a house that they had not been able to reach her office line for a couple of days. But it's in perfect order, she insisted. It was only when she tried the number that she discovered that something was not quite right.
Hers was a number that began with 5. It was purely by chance that she discovered the next day that it now began with 4! The telephone company had not thought fit to inform her — and several others, I later found — of the change.
Not unlike this is the case of bills being sent online. When the bills were being sent by post, there were no problems. In recent months, the server has been sending online bills. For that to be meaningful, the online bill must arrive (and not all e-mails do!), your computer should not be down at the time it is sent, and you should be looking at your computer every day. Not all those conditions are met in the case of several people — including your columnist. Yet services are cut — without a warning!
Take another Internet scenario. Bills have to be paid, say, by the 18th and you are informed the bills can be dropped in a box in a specified bank by that date. Yet when a cheque is dropped in the box on the 18th, the service is found to be cut the same evening. Inquiries are responded to with the answer that those dropping cheques in boxes have to allow three full days for clearance and that only on clearance will the service continue. If that is the policy, surely 18th is NOT the last date for payment by cheque, it should be the 14th!
The political leadership keeps repeating how everything is being made easier for the citizen. I only find things getting mired more and more in a lack of correct information, public service and sensitivity.
S. MUTHAIAH
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