Forget politicians, Ministers and MlAs. For, they might be quite looked down upon by the educated-white collared officials here in Jharkhand, even the orders of the Chief Secretary are not taken ‘seriously’ if not denied completely.
The instructions of Chief Secretary Sajal Chakraverty given in meeting he conducted with all Deputy Commissioners (DC) of the State on Wednesday to set up a Composite Control Room to help the common man in distress seem to have been ignored by the DCs as no district has an ‘effective’ call centre that would address the problems of the common man and guide him to a suitable solution.
Although some district administration officials claim to have set up the centre or to have strengthened the centres, they were found to be either non-operational or a modified version of a district control room that was claimed to be the improved control room.
“Although the call centre was functional after the directions were issued by the Chief Secretary, in order to make them more effective from today we have deputed 30 magistrates for the purpose, who will be attending the phone calls round the clock and forward the complaints lodged by the common man to the concerned persons in respective departments,”said Ranchi DC Vinay Kumar Chaubey.
The landline number of the composite control room in Ranchi is 0651–2213022 attended by the magistrates in three shifts round the clock, said the DC. No one however, picked up the phone while being called from The Pioneer office repeatedly for several time in order to verify the number. Even concerned officer was contacted who also did not pick up the phone.
Ironically enough, according to an official release from the Ranchi district administration sent to media houses on Friday the magistrate on duty at the call centre will also rush to the place of occurrence if necessary or will forward the complaint to the concerned office or police station as per the requirement.
The magistrates have been asked to reach the control Room 15 minutes before time and take all details of the complaints lodged by the relieving officer and follow the actions taken on the complaints lodged by him, the press communiqué states. They have also been asked to be polite with the complainants while lodging complaints, it further stated.
Koderma DC K Ravi Kumar claimed that he was more accessible to people and many people contact him on his mobile phone for solving their personal problems.
“The call centre had already been established and the numbers have also been publicized in order to get it circulated among the people. Although it has been established a few months back, we are not getting complains what was expected as most of the people call me on my mobile in case of urgency,” said the Koderma DC.Dumka DC Harsh Mangala also said that it started functioning in his district on the very next day after the Chief Secretary passed directions in this regard. However, he did not mention how many calls the centre has got in the two days’ duration.
Another DC requesting anonymity asserted that the existing control Room number has been converted into the Composite Control Room number deputing a magistrate round the clock which receiving calls on it rarely.“As I am more conveniently accessible on my mobile phone, people prefer calling on my mobile rather than calling an unknown person sitting in the control room,” said the DC. He, however, admitted that the establishment of composite control room will only help relieving him from getting more and more calls on his mobile phone, he added.
Bizarrely, most DCs, who the Pioneer contacted, do not remember the call centre number. They asked to contact junior officers for getting ‘minute’ details.