Aurangabad, Dec 24:
The visitors to the Aurangabad Municipal Corporation (AMC) complained of facing inconvenience as their grievances are not being redressed due to the absence of key officers in their chairs. They are forced to make rounds of the ward office or AMC headquarters. On inquiry, the subordinate staff gives them a stock reply saying 'sahab' is on tour, on visit, has went for meeting or is out of station. They questioned where to represent their say and get it to overcome when the officer concern is not available to them.
There are no public representatives in the current AMC body. Hence the former corporators are not interested in resolving the people's problems. The ward office is visited by people coming with complaints relating to basic amenities - water, drainage, garbage, streetlight etc. They get disappointed when the concerned authority is not available in his chair. Their disappointment gets multiplied when the HoD of the respective section is also found missing. The peons and personal assistants give stock replies. They are told to come afterwards. If the officers meet them then they are told to see the superiors.
Few days ago, one delegation grieved before the divisional commissioner Sunil Kendrekar saying that if the civic chief is not there then where to air our grievance. They requested to issue an order that the senior officers should be available in their sections at a specific time. The memorandum was signed by Ramsingh Patil and 10 others.
It is learnt that the AMC administrator has the authority to fix the availability timings of the heads of various sections. Earlier, the time from 3 pm to 5 pm was reserved for meeting people from Mondays to Fridays. However, the practice has been stopped recently for reasons better known to civic authorities.