Denied marriage by lover, girl hangs self

After a month of shrugging off its responsibility towards a citizen’s lawsuits, MSEDCL is forced to behave driven by way of WhatsApp buzz

Snapped out of electricity for a month and stonewalled by way of the impenetrable Maharashtra State Electricity Distribution Company Limited (MSEDCL) — the sunshine on the finish of the tunnel for this Chikali resident came from the power of social media. A piece he could now not get finished knocking on quite a lot of doorways of the power application for a month, got expedited by way of a whine he posted on WhatsApp, which went viral and landed on a helpline created by way of a Member of the Legislative Assembly (MLA).

Vijay Tapir lived together with his family in an unbiased house and has been there for a decade now. Early this March, the outdated power line to his house broke. He first attempted to handle the issue the usage of a private electrician, however quickly realised that the subject was past such intervention. So he wrote to MSEDCL’s native workplace at Moshi-Chikali, in quest of the requisite maintenance.

Chikali resident Vijay Tapir (centre) suffered from a power outage since March this 12 months (L); it was now not his reliable plaints however social media rant (R) that caught attention

While the issue was identified as a fault in the underground cabling, resolution was now not so coming near near. “The responses I got from them have been merely unacceptable. They permitted that the issue lay underground however chose to shrug off their responsibility,” Tapir advised Mirror.

The emerging mercury made lifestyles living hell for him and his family, sending him scurrying to escalate the issue. He reached out to higher government on the Chinchwad workplace of MSEDCL. “I made several visits to that workplace however to no avail. Forget facilitating the resolution, it was even recommended that I in finding the fault (in the line) by myself or even dig up the spot for the paintings,” the angry customer blistered.

Tapir was repeatedly fobbed off by way of random excuses furnished by way of the MSEDCL officials. Finally, losing center, he vented via a WhatsApp message recounting his month-long travails, along side his contact and consumer main points. “It went viral, winding its manner via several WhatsApp groups, prior to anyone posted it at the Parivartan Helpline. The downside was attended to right away,” Tapir added.

Parivatan Helpline was began in 2016 by way of Mahesh Landge, an unbiased MLA from Bhosari. Working round-the-clock, it has on board greater than 100 WhatsApp groups. These groups have officials from other executive companies and utilities as their individuals. The officials rank from the ones operating on the grassroots degree to bureaucrats. Landge in my opinion screens activities now not handiest at the helpline but also most of the WhatsApp groups.

MSEDCL’s officials are also a part of the community and Tapir’s post on this kind of fora should have acted as a humiliation, galvanising them into action. “The crew works 24x7 and has resolved over 27,000 lawsuits so far. With everybody on board, it becomes imperative for the involved reliable to reply to the message posted in the team. A token is generated by way of the helpline for every complaint and it's not closed till the issue is resolved. It was began with the intent to wait to issues of the common voters and this family too has benefitted from this initiative,” Landge defined.

Pushed into doing their process, the officials on the MSEDCL Bhosari Section Office are unwilling to simply accept blame for dragging their ft. “We paintings round-the-clock and do our responsibility diligently,” insisted assistant engineer, Vikrant Varude, on the workplace. Turning the tables on Tapir, he added, “It was Tapir who volunteered to get the cable and help the personnel fix the issue. We didn't seek his participation. I got the process finished once I won the complaint. It is not true that the complaint was pending for a month. The connection is not even in Tapir’s identify however in that of another person. Tapir is the one at fault for the delay.”