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Journalism of Courage
Power failures, seepages, water-logging, monkeys, stray dogs and garbage piled up in front of the house. If you think these are problems that only you face, you can’t be more wrong: you are in a very elite company.
The complaint register of the New Delhi Municipal Council for the first three months of the year shows several such complaints from the Capital’s VVIPs from the President and Prime Minister to ministers and diplomats. Here are some of the 2,137 complaints:
• Rashtrapati Bhavan: The staff called twice to complain about wild langurs, four times about stray dogs (two of them even got inside the Rashtrapati Bhavan) and once about a theft of electricity from the President’s estate.
• The Prime Minister’s residence: There were eight complaints about power failure including two complete blackouts for the SPG staff, two calls about fire on electric poles and once a request to shut down power due to a short-circuit in the streetlights. There were six complaints for sewage flooding and water leakages and two about monkey meance.
• Parliament: A rather emotional complaint from the Parliament Control Room rocked the NDMC. It said “the Indian Tricolour has been hung upside down” just as a foreign dignitary was about to visit. NDMC officials rushed to the spot with ropes and ladders and rectified the fault just before the media arrived. A few days later, another complaint said “the national flag has fallen”, prompting a group of staff to rush to the site.
• Foreign Missions: The US Embassy had complaints on issues ranging from “smoke coming from the basement” to faulty streetlights and also dead and stray dogs. The Iranian embassy is till trying to figure out who stole the manhole covers outside the embassy while there was an outraged call from the Ghana mission complaining of a slum colony coming up in front overnight. Fed up with piling garbage, both the Egyptian and Belgian embassies have also dialled NDMC.
• Ministers/MPs: Renuka Chowdhury’s staff called to ask NDMC for dustbins while the Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit’s staff called about a suspiciously big hole being dug in front of her residence From the residence of MPs staying in North Avenue, South Avenue, Ferozshah Road and Lodhi Estate, there are about 15 complaints everyday.
The NDMC Chairperson, Sindhuhree Khullar, said: “For important places like the Prime Minister’s residence, all complaints have to be resolved within half and hour.” But they treat all calls as urgent. “All complaints are relayed immediately to the concerned departments and everybody is equal for us.”
