Dear Sir,
I am Retired Commodore D.R Acharya residing in sector 25 Jalvayu Vihar Noida. It is understood that in sector 25 the old meters are being replaced with the new ones. Yesterday 02 July at about 2 pm I found that there was very high fluctuation in the voltage. I immediately switched off my main devices and waited for the fluctuation to settle down. Since this happens in Noida very frequently I was sure that this will settle down after sometime. Immediately after that there was some one at my door who called me down to the ground floor telling me that there was some spark coming from my meter box on the ground floor. There were about three to four people there including two of my neighbours. Two other persons who claimed to be from the Electricity department told me that there was some spark in my meter box. I thanked them for the information and asked them how come they were there so fast. They told me that they were checking all meters as those were to be replaced with new Indian meters and when they came to our cluster they found two of the meters having that sparking. They also volunteered to help me out by giving me direct connection which I did not understand but they did some thing after breaking the seal of the meter and corrected my voltage fluctuation.
I was very happy and thanked them for their help. When I came up to my house my neighbour from house number L-266 came to me and said that those people did not want to tell me directly but they expected some reward from me. He himself told me that I should give them around Rs. 50 or so. I only had a change for Rs. 40 and gave that to one of the person who had corrected my power supply.
This was a routine matter and I had no problem about this. What got me alarmed was the fact that at about 8:15 pm or so my same neighbour came to me and shocked me with a suggestion which was highly preposterous. He told me that those power supply people had told him that my meter was burnt and the replacement would cost me around Rs. 5700/=. However, this can be sorted out at very less money if I was willing to make nominal payment directly to those people. I asked him why did they not tell me this directly. To that he said that they were hesitant to talk to me directly about such proposal and since he has been using their services time and again they made this proposal through him. He also told me that he was only trying to help me as a neighbour. I thanked him for his concern about me and told him that I will consider his proposal later.
After thinking over this for the whole night and then relating it to the agitation by ANNA HAZARE and party where the PM and all other politicians as well as the officer cadre are getting a bad name for the wrought that has set in our society I thought it prudent to report this on line. I do not know what action will be taken on this but these are the problems of our society which need to be highlighted. Ultimately a common man or the customer for fear of trouble to him hesitate to make such complaints. I am also worried that me and my wife may suffer if the power supply to us is interrupted but if all of us remain quiet about such issues who will remove this wrought from our society. I am making this long report for the benefit of those who care to cleanse the system.
Warm regards
Commodore (retired) D.R Acharya
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