Khalid Hyder
I downloaded the Pakistan Citizens Portal App a year back and till now I have made 11 complaints, all about general public welfare. In all the cases the response was almost instant. The complaint was duly forwarded to the concerned department and I got a response within a week, either by telephone or by email. However, I noted that in all the cases the response was mostly cosmetic. The concerned officials were very respectful and said that action would be taken, and the complaint was closed. However no action was taken. In some cases the response even bordered on the ridiculous.
Here are a few examples. Traffic Jams on GT Road Rawalpindi. I complained about parking of Attock Oil Refinery oil tankers on the main GT Road during the day, causing terrible traffic jams during morning and evening rush hours. My complaint was promptly forwarded to the Motorway/Rawalpindi Traffic Police, which said that the Army’s Station Headquarters Rawalpindi issued the permits to oil tankers and therefore they could do nothing about it. Subsequently the complaint was forwarded to the Chief of Army Staff, GHQ, Rawalpindi. This response borders on the ridiculous.
In another complaint, I wrote that the pedestrian/motorcycle bridge on GT Road near Ayub Park in Rawalpindi was causing frequent traffic jams because Passenger Wagons and Suzuki vans were picking up passengers under the bridge, whereas a perfectly good bus bay was available nearby. The Citizens Portal promptly forwarded the complaint to Rawalpindi Traffic Police and I was contacted by a Traffic Police Inspector. He expressed his inability to solve the problem, and complained about the attitude of the public who would not listen to the Traffic Police, and that they could not even stop the public from breaking one way rule. We both agreed that public was going wild and we would have to learn to live with it.
Non availability of car registration number plates in Rawalpindi. I purchased a car and got it registered in Rawalpindi on 4 Nov 2019. I paid registration number plate fee as well as courier fee, and I was told that the number plates would be delivered to my home address. When I did not get the number plates even after three months, I complained on the Citizens Portal and the complaint was promptly forwarded to DC Rawalpindi. The rather insensitive reply from DC Rawalpindi was that there was a hitch in the printing process which could not be resolved and that I would have to wait. Now more than four months have passed and I am still waiting for the number plates. In the meantime, I have had to pay additional Rs. 1500 for making temporary number plates.
Poor Service in National Savings Centre Chaklala. I complained to the Citizens Portal that I had to wait more than two hours in an attempt to deposit cash for getting Defence Service Certificates from their Chaklala branch. The complaint was promptly forwarded to Governor State Bank and I was contacted by the Manager of the National Savings Centre the very next day. However the Manager complained about his inability to serve the account holders due to acute shortage of staff. He felt really sorry that the Savings Centre was unable to provide prompt service to the hundreds of senior citizens who have accounts in the Savings Centre. He however offered to solve my problem if I contacted him personally. But in my opinion this is not a solution to the problem, as the hundreds of other account holders would continue to be treated poorly.
I have now realized that our bureaucracy has developed insensitivity to complaints sent by the Citizens Portal. Their method of redressing complaints is to sweet talk the complainant, but they do nothing to solve the problem. In fact it appears that they abhor the Citizens Portal and consider these complaints as gross interference in their jobs. I have now realized that lodging complaints on Pakistan Citizens Portal is a waste of time, and therefore I have uninstalled the App from my mobile phone. Unlike Prime Minister Imran Khan who has the fortitude to persevere till the end, I do not have the vigour to cure the slackness and insensitivity of Pakistan’s imperial bureaucracy.
—The writer is freelance columnist, based in Rawalpindi.
