Aug 30
The separation of powers has the Government handling policy and day to day running of the country, and the Courts have interpretation of laws and the handling of civil and criminal disputes under these laws. So, normally you would not hear of courts getting involved in the matter of process of setting policy, or taking operational matters into their hands and providing directions to Governments. However, in India, the Governments have proved incompetent in so many matters that the courts have thought it fit to intervene using the basis of the rights of quality of life for citizens. Otherwise, who would have thought that a court would give directions to a municipal department to ensure that dengue protection steps are taken:
Delhi High Court on Wednesday ordered the city government’s health department and its civic bodies, MCD and NDMC to take all necessary steps to prevent the recurrence of dengue in the city.
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Aug 30
Electricity billing is not supposed to be a high-tech area, and something that is being done fairly accurately and successfully by a large number of countries. Hence it seems somewhat strange that we see many cities having billing problems in terms of electricity. Seems like a casual attitude, or maybe not enough control over what is happening. Or maybe the powers be have not taken a good look at the problem to come up with a good solution, instead of keeping on trying to find new solutions. One of the signs of good governance is that So, read on as to what the Pune electricity department has to say about why it cannot do billing properly:
Speaking to TOI, Gautam said that the MSEDCL was in the process of switching over from spot billing system — where bills were issued on the spot after taking meter readings — to digital photo reading in the city. “And this transition was leading to many billing complaints,” he claimed.
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