My post-office now has an additional fan in the customer hall. It took the authorities more than 6 months to get one fan installed, even after bringing the issue to their notice.

The customer hall at the post-office had a fan at one end, which barely moved. The other end had no fan at all. This end witnessed long queues, extending to way outside the post-office on busy days. Standing in this queue was unbearable in the absence of a fan overhead due to the heat and humidity. My repeated requests to the officer-in-charge of the post-office were ignored. Disappointed, I lodged a complaint on the GOI’s Grievance Redressal Portal (https://pgportal.gov.in/). This portal acts merely as a post-office, just forwarding the complaints to the concerned department. The advantage, however, is that the concerned department/official must at least react to the complaint even if just to close the complaint on the portal without ever taking any remedial action.

In my case, however, I did receive a response. An officer from the SSPO’s office called me to understand the issue. He then assured me that an additional fan would be installed at the earliest. A reply on these lines was received in writing too. However, the complaint was closed immediately, even before actual remedial action was taken. That was the end of the matter as far as the SSPOs office was concerned. Additional fan was not installed.

Tired of this, after no further action was taken for several months, I decided to precipitate the matter by seeking to inspect the books and documents with reference to my PG Portal complaint under Right to Information Act.

My expectation was that this would goad the concerned officials into some action and that the fan would be installed without any further delay. Nothing of this sort happened. Near to the 30-day deadline, I received a go ahead to visit the SSPOs office for inspection of documents.

The inspection of documents revealed that while the existing aged fan was repaired, the proposal of installation of an additional fan was never taken up, despite the assurance given in response to my complaint. On receipt of my RTI application, SSPO noted that the matter was never put up to her and sought clarification. The responding official wrongly clarified that ‘repairing of fan and shifting of fan to public hall is already done’.

During the inspection of the documents, I informally interacted with the senior official present there and asked him if this wastage of time and money, both mine as well of the postal department, was worth it? He agreed that it was not so and that the fan should have been installed without any delay. He had no answer when I asked him why no action was taken even after receipt of RTI application and why no action was taken even by the time I visited their office for inspection?

When I visited the post-office yesterday, a new fan has now been installed. It took six months and a lot of persuasion.