The Hindu : Tamil Nadu / Chennai News : Reporter's Diary

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Tuesday, Oct 17, 2006
ePaper

Tamil Nadu

Tamil Nadu - Chennai

Reporter's Diary

Non-announcement of information

The non-announcement of information put to hardship those who had gone to receive passengers arriving by a train at Chennai Central the other day.

An announcement was made that the Mysore-Chennai Shatabdi would arrive on platform No. 5 on which another train had already arrived. Though the platform number of arrival of the Shatabdi was repeatedly announced, visitors who went to the station to receive passengers did not know that the train was being brought in on the same platform on which another train stood. It took some time for them to realise this.

An announcement to this effect would have made all the difference, a resident of Ambattur who went to the station to receive his sick brother, said.

They stay united, at least now

Political rivalry in Tamil Nadu's standards can be bitter. But in a rare show of camaraderie the contestants for a ward in Alandur Municipality came together at a polling booth located in Hindu Colony, Chellammal Vidyalaya, Nanganallur on Sunday. L. Prem Anand of DMDK, Vairamuthu of AIADMK, Narasimhalu of INC, Guruswamy, Rani Jothi and K. Jagadeesh, independents, contesting in ward number 20, posed for a photograph showing how united they were on local issues. Voters hope this unity would ensure long and thus help in local development.

Cinema buffs at risk

A visitor to a popular cinemas complex in the heart of Chennai was shocked that hundreds of people who came out of a movie had to inch their way through an ill-lit and five-foot-wide passage. And when they came out, they had to walk through rubble, construction debris and steel roads and parked cars. In case of any emergency such as fire, people would never be able to get away to safety in these conditions, movie-watcher Mrs. Mohan noted and wondered whether the civic and licensing authorities were aware of the dangers that movie-watchers were exposed to.

Customers deserve better care

A customer with a prepaid connection, who felt that he was paying too much under one scheme wanted to shift over to a less expensive scheme. He approached the cellular operator and was advised to send his request through an SMS for plan change. This he did on October 5 and promptly received a replay stating that his request had been registered and the change would be effected and intimated within four hours. However, nothing happened.

Since then the customer sent similar SMS nearly a dozen times and got the same reply. When contacted, the customer care centre too gave him a standard reply, saying the request was under process and "the change would be effected definitely today." Ultimately, the plan change happened after 10 days. The customer was certainly not impressed.

Contributions by K.T. Sangameswaran and T. Madhavan

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