DoT plans open house to tackle NGOs

“We will hold the open house session in a fortnight,” General Manager, DoT, Vadodara district, Rakesh Babu told the Express Newsline. "We are not organising it (the session) specifically for NGO representatives. It will be an open forum and will welcome all those with genuine complaints or suggestion,” he said.

The Department of Telecom sources, however, said the open session was one of the demands listed in the memorandum submitted jointly by Social and Cultural Group of Baroda, Young Akota Circle and Yuva Prahar. The three NGOs had suggested the department to convene a meeting of senior citizens, NGO representatives and DoT officials as a brain-storming session to find solution to the various problems afflicting the consumers.

Babu, however, was non-committal on other demands such as issuing of Re one coupon on the lines of Ahmedabad Municipal Transport Service (AMTS) and a rational rate structure for local calls. “We have referred these demands to the Chief General Manager’s office at Ahmedabad and they will subsequently take up the matter with senior officials in Delhi. These are policy decisions and cannot be handled at local levels,” Babu said.

The organisations, meanwhile, alleged that resolving the pending demands were crucial to restore people’s confidence in the department’s efficiency. They claimed that by passing on the onus to “higher authorities”, the DoT was evading the issues. “These issues are very crucial and have to be resolved quickly. After all, the common man is compelled to shell out more than he/she is supposed to,” said Social and Cultural group of Baroda President Sailesh Shah.

Meanwhile, raids on the STD-PCO operators, which had thawed during the Navratri festival, will gather pace from Wednesday. A DoT official said about 300 operators were raided till the beginning of the Navratri. Babu asserted that the raids would continue and action will be taken against erring operators.