The Hindu : Andhra Pradesh News : No lean period

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Tuesday, Nov 11, 2008
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Andhra Pradesh

Andhra Pradesh

No lean period

The month of Kartik is sacred for most people belonging Hindu community. They are supposed to stay away from non-vegetarian food during the month. Even traditional Hindu families in the State don’t even allow the non-vegetarian food to be cooked in homes during last five days of the month that started on Sunday.

Since there is lesser demand of non-vegetarian food, the fish market in the capital city usually wears deserted look. Traders consider it as a lean period. But this year, a few quintals of fish vanished from Unit-IV market within couple of hours on Sunday.

Though the population of fish vendors was marginally low, the rate-chart of various fishes had not undergone any change. Prices of fishes, crabs and prawns continued to remain high.

One trader gave an interesting reason behind the skyrocketing prices.

“Most of traders thought they would not be able to do good business as people would go by their religious belief. But on the ground, more people especially turned up.

To cater their needs, supply of fish and prawn fell short. And there was no change in prices,” he said. Fish traders have learnt a lesson this time.

From next year onwards there will no lean period.

Beware of racketeers

Family members of a journalist had forgotten to return back the unused medicines, injections and catheters to a medical shop in the MKCG medical college campus in the city. They had missed it in the joy of his recovery from a cardiac stroke that happened in August 2007.

These items were prescribed when the scribe was admitted in the casualty ward of the medical college hospital but they were not of any use in the Intensive Care Unit (ICU), where he was put in.

After more than a year the wife of the scribe took them out when a friend was hospitalised to find whether they could be of any use. She was astonished to find that all the items provided to her in Aug. 2007 had expiry date of 2006.

In a very cunning manner the old medical items were supplied to the wife of a patient in serious condition. The relatives of such patients surely do not have time to check out as the patient fights for every moment.

And the racketeers cash upon the faith of these persons in a hurry to save their relatives.

Operator’s accountability

A leading cable TV operator of Bhubaneswar that never bothered to provide proper service to its customers in the past seems to have suddenly realised its responsibility and started taking steps to ensure consumer satisfaction.

In the past, the service provider never sent its staff to attend to the complaints from its consumers.

In several localities, the company was also not ready to provide cable TV connections.

It, however, has started attending to complaints from its consumers in time in the recent weeks.

It has also spread its network in areas where it refused to provide service in the past.

On inquiry, one found that the cable operator in question had not changed its attitude in the interest of its customers, but because its consumer base started weakening fast with people going to avail the service from other cable TV service providers who had arrived in the city.

Satyasundar Barik, Sib Kumar Das, Prafulla Das