Post office executives to pay fine for non-delivery of email
Government Departments and utilities have always believed that they are above the law when it relates to stuff such as consumer interests, customer complaints, and consumer forum activities. However, given that these Government utilities such as telecom, electricity, water, roads, post offices, etc get money from consumers (either in the form of direct payment such as electricity, post office, telecom or indirectly through the taxes we pay), it is only fair that they be held accountable when their customer service is below the desired quality levels or when their actions cause harm to consumers. And so it has started to happen, consider this case when the postman did not deliver a mail claiming that the address could not be found, that when the complainant directly was able to locate the address (link to article):
Categories: Accountable, Babudom, Compensation, Consumer, Court, Maharashtra, Quality, Responsibility, Utility Tags: Compensation, Complaint, Consumer, Customer, Forum, Government, Grievance, India, Post Department, Postal
Use SMS to file complaints in the Pimpri-Chinchwad area
Municipal authorities have always been accused of being slow to adapt to modern technology, but now it seems that they are catching up to modern technology and adoption of the same so that their consumers find it easier to file complaints and interact with the municipal authorities. Consider this case of the municipal corporation of Pimpri-Chinchwad that has launched a SMS complaint service on a trial basis and started receiving complaints on this service (link to article):
Residents of Pimpri-Chinchwad can now register a complaint against civic problems by simply sending an SMS. The Pimpri-Chinchwad Municipal Corporation (PCMC) launched the SMS complaint service on a trial basis on March 20. Since then, around 70 grievenaces have been received, of which only seven are pending.
Categories: Citizen, Consumer, Convenience, Governance, Maharashtra, Utility Tags: Complaint, Modern, Municipal Corporation, SMS
Online tax filing in India (use of modern technology)
One always thinks of the Government as being slow, not able to catch onto the latest technology trends, and using old procedures. However, this is not always true, and the Government has been able to surprise us many times by showing its ability to adopt some of the newer technologies, and at the same time, do so with the required safe-guards. So, first we had the railways ticket booking website, http://irctc.co.in, and then we have the Tax Authority of the country trying to use all modern trends for tax filing. So, if you refer to the website (link) for Income Tax India, you will be able to download forms, and read more about details related to your tax filing. The website even has a very basic Tax calculator (link)
The entire procedure for paying tax online is initiated at this link (link), with a more detailed explanation about how to find list of banks, making payment and challan details, getting receipt / confirmation, etc available at these 2 documents (link 1, link 2). If you prefer to pay online with some more help, then there are various 3rd parties that can help you with the payment process (you can fill in a simple filing, or opt for a higher package if you have more sources of income besides a simple Form 16, and some of them even give an option of walking into their office and filing in the details). Here are the links to these sites:
Categories: Convenience, Finance, Online, Tax, Utility Tags:
