[carwatcher]

I had a harrowing experience with IRCTC but rescued by pgportal.

I booked a Train Ticket in November last year (amount Rs.9375/-) and as it was partially confirmed (one out of three) so filed a TDR as soon as the chart got prepared.
I forgot about it as TDR takes about 3 months and I thought it would automatically come to my bank account.

To my shock and horror after six months I got email stating that my TDR got rejected as I didn't file it within the stipulated time (4 hours before the scheduled departure of train) even though I filed it around 12 hrs ago. They can't verify this basic info. I was disgusted with this sarkari carelessness.

Our Railway Minister who claimed in an Interview that the personally reads every tweet hence decided to tweet him. From Twitter account of IR and Rly Min I only got the parrot type reply that the TDR claim is rejected due to my not filing TDR in time even though I did so.

I was perplexed as to in this age of digital governance what the hell is happening.

Then I filed the claim on pgportal somewhere in May 2016 and after a month or so got the reply that the scheduled departure of train was 15th Nov and I filed the claim on 19th Nov which is nothing but a blatant lie as I filed it on 14th Nov and had sent them the screenshot too showing the date and exact time.

So after all this exercise all I came to know that the claim filing date is 19th, nothing else. I guessed that as 15th Nov was Sunday IRCTC might have not filed it in time etc. But we don't have any control on IRCTC which is a Govt company and it certainly is not my mistake.

Then I again filed an Appeal against the previous order of pgportal (something like Level II) with the screenshot etc and then got a reply last week that they will return me a sum of Rs. 6850/- I was still angry that as per rule I should either get full amount less clerkage or Nil and was mentally trying to again appeal once I get the partial amount and closure report, but to my surprise I got an email from IRCTC that they have got the full refund which was finally credited to my bank account two days back.

So much so for Govt efficiency.

I am shit scared to book ticket from IRCTC after this as even if you call them they take your side but act helpless and say that they are only the courier boys between us and IR, then who should take responsibility for IRCTC actions.

This is second bad experience I had with IRCTC, in first case my TDR was rejected due to Tatkal tickets are not eligible for refund even though the train got stuck in floods and never reached the destination, the fact which railway people failed to check even though they could have done easily. Funny part was that the passengers who were told to leave the train who had got normal tickets were being given full refund on the spot. This was around four years ago but it still hurts.

[Rehaan]

BHPian Shamanth used PGPortal to action the removal of 17 dangerous speedbreakers on the Hyderabad - Goa route

They are going to be replaced with rumber strips, which are the safer alternative (and legal for highway use).

LINK

[SpeedFanatic]

I am pleasantly surprised to come across a thread related to pgportal as well at this forum.

Well, i have bought a pre-owned car a month back and the RC transfer took place by Delhi based RTO approx 2 weeks back. Dispatched by the same RTO within the city (Delhi) itself on 30/July/2018 and as on 10/Aug/2018 i am still waiting for this "speed post" to be delivered at my address.

When i track the speed post, it shows it lying at the nearest post office since last 10 days. I wonder why is it called a "Speed" post !

Well i have lodged a grievance at pgportal today and the issue seems to have been taken up by the CPMG today itself. The status shows a remark whereby the concerned post office has been instructed to deliver the speed post within the next 3 working days.

I seriously hope it works for me!

[Rehaan]

Originally Posted by SpeedFanatic

... instructed to deliver the speed post within the next 3 working days.

I seriously hope it works for me!

Well, did it work? Interested to know if this actually came through...

[V.Narayan]

A lot has changed in our country for the significant better over the last 10 years since the Govt and politicians caught on to the benefits of digitization. and this process of doing things on line is cutting out so much of the delay and harassment and rent seeking that the middle and lower tiers of Govt indulged in. Some that come to my mind, I naddition to this public grievance portal are :-

# filing your income tax on line and not needing to chase 50 parties for their paper TDS certificates.
# digitizing land records in some states and thus cutting out the land grab that is other wise prevalent
# there is a site under which you can write to the PMO with suggestions for improvement and even on major policy matters. And you get a reply in 72 hours.
# Railway bookings for heaven's sake. In the 1970s holiday bookings were such a rush my mother used to make me stand in some wretched railway queue at 4AM and my turn would come halfway through the evening!
#Ministry of Company Affairs getting digitized on DIN, corporate records and other matters. Till as recently as the early 2000s getting any record out of MoCA or RoC was a one week affair.

And in the works are MyGov a governance portal, Digilocker and Aadhar e-sign framework. Who would have thought fibre would be laid to a quarter of the villages in India. By 2019, 150,000 villages will be connected.

There are still several things that are broken and a way lot of indiscipline in us folks but any one who grumbles that India is not moving is probably living on an island.

[SpeedFanatic]

Originally Posted by Rehaan

Well, did it work? Interested to know if this actually came through...

Really a sad state of affairs my friend. Starting from the top officials the complaint has touched down the 4th level.

Every official simply assigns the task to his subordinate with a new deadline. However the deadline is very much editable and at mercy of officials in the Indian Postal department.

This pgportal might work wonders for some particular departments but Indian postal service seems to be consistent and not willing to let go their bad repo they have earned throughout these years.

I have taken it up offline through some personal resources and the "Speed" post has now reached another post office in the vicinity of my residence today. It was actually returned by the previous nearby post office which was expected to deliver it. They claim it has to be delivered by another post office. So the post went through a round robin twice via NSH New Delhi in the last 16 days.

Finally i believe it should now be delivered in another 2 days or so.

[SpeedFanatic]

Seems like the RC (Speedpost) is being returned to the RTO office in delhi from which it was sent to my address.

Now this address where i got my preowned cars RC registered is a C/O address and i dont have my own address proof for the same.

Any suggestions if i should be able to grab this RC from the RTO itself showing my id proof?

[saurabh2711]

Originally Posted by SpeedFanatic

Seems like the RC (Speedpost) is being returned to the RTO office

Same had happened to me recently.

When was your post returned undelivered from your home? I was told that all undelivered posts remain in the (main) post office of your area for a period of 7-15 days. Then they are send back to the sender.
Check the status of the courier on the India Post portal. You may want to check it their first. If still in post office & not send back to RTO, You can collect it from post office by carrying the ID proof of the person whose name is on the mail. They will hand over to you there & then.

IF you are sure of this delivered back to RTO, you can get it by carrying any ID proof, address is not mandate.
RC's going back to RTO will call for additional fees (sort of penalties 50-100 Rs.) & unnecessary time wastage.
Check with Postman first & then check it in post office. Collect from there if available.

[SpeedFanatic]

Thanks Saurabh. Thats a really helpful piece of info from your end.

Well this speed post has been travelling all around Delhi for past 24 days or so, from one post office to another.

Got in touch with the post office and as per their understanding, an incorrect address must have been mentioned by the RTO due to which the speed post is not reaching the desired address.

All post offices in the vicinity to which NSH New Delhi has been sending this particular speed post for delivery to my address, returns it back to NSH after a couple of days.

Now finally i suppose it would be better to pay some penalty and sacrificing a few hours in a single day at the RTO itself than following up with post offices every day.

[NPV]

Recently decided to give up our BSNL landline phone as it was used very sparingly.

Back in April this year, visited the BSNL exchange with the closure request letter and copies of the initial deposit and last bill and payment receipt for that bill. Also took the phone instrument to surrender. The officer asked for a cancelled cheque to process the refund via NEFT. Since I did not have it, had to return and visit again the next day. Got an acknowledgement and the officer mentioned that the last bill should Not be paid and will be adjusted against initial deposit and the balance amount will be refunded via NEFT. I asked him if there was an SLA for this and he said it takes about 3 months.

Last week I realized I hadn't received the refund so logged a complaint on pgportal. Received an update saying the refund was approved in early July and was sent to the Central Processing cell for the NEFT! There was also an officer who was assigned to the case and his contact information was shared. I was planning to go over to the BSNL office on Saturday and meet this person. But, today I received the amount via NEFT in my bank account

Pgportal is possibly one sure-shot way to make the lazy officials working in these departments to move their backsides.

[SpeedFanatic]

Glad to know it worked in your case. In my case where my speed post went missing, it didn't. In fact i got the first call from related head office after 2 months of putting up the complaint asking me if the complaint got resolved.

I told them i had to spend a lot of time and effort navigating from one post office to another and finally got my RC from the concerned RTO itself when my RC returned to that RTO after more than a month.

[KL01toKA03]

I have found PGPortal extremely useful, and I have seen that it works well for complaints regarding private companies also. Here are my experiences:

1. PayTM agents demanded money to complete KYC, which was mentioned as free on their website. Nothing happened despite complaints, including on Twitter. However, they sent a person home to complete the KYC after a grievance was registered on PGPortal.

2. My Jio Fiber connection was cancelled during address verification, because the address entered by the Jio agent on his phone was incomplete, and hence did not match the address mentioned in my Aadhaar card.

Jio accepts payments using cards, but does not issue refunds to the card. So, I was told that they would send a cheque in 7 days. To avoid sending the cheque to the incomplete address, I asked them to send the refund amount by NEFT (sent a mail with the account details). After a few days, I called their customer care and got to know that they sent a cheque, and that too to the wrong address. They said that they would send another cheque or attempt NEFT IF the cheque was returned. I asked them for proof of receipt ( I knew that they would not be able to provide that for the incomplete address), but the customer care agents were not helpful.

After 2 months of fighting with Jio customer care, I lodged a complaint on PGPortal. Within a few days, I got a call from their Mumbai office. The person who called was reasonable, and agreed with my argument that it makes no sense to cancel a connection request due to incorrect address, and send the refund to the same account. They collected my account details for NEFT and processed the refund to my account.

[rm_arjuna]

While on roadtrip to Hampi in aug'19 , we had driven to Badami aswell . We encountered numerous multiple Speed rumblers at each intersection . It was very annoying in a newly laid road . Posted a complaint in PG portal and within 4 weeks i received a letter from the Director of National Highways Hospet Range assuring that the rumblers is being removed .

Feels good when your greviance is addressed by the Govt . However Karnataka Govt is yet to respond on complaint filed on the same day with regard to huge Spead breakers along state highway between Raichur & Sindanur .

[moralfibre]

Originally Posted by moralfibre

Great initiative by the government. And I am promoting this portal at work for their grievances.

EDIT: And the problem is fixed in less than 24 hours of launching a complaint.

Wanted to share two more incidents that have reinstated my belief in our administration via pgportal. Full marks to the govt of the day who put these systems in place. They continue to be the epitome of accountability in an otherwise rusty government.

# 1 Dealing with gas agencies:

We moved to our current apartment about 8 years ago. In the initial days I would manage to send a domestic help over to our old address to collect our gas cylinders for use. Over the next few months we realised it wasn't a scalable solution and we should get ourselves a new connection for the new address.

So we put up an application with the local agency and it sat there for months as usual. When I found time to follow up, I stopped by their office and asked for the reason in delay. The response from an arrogant and every busy gas agency operator was that he had no time and bandwidth to process pending orders. But, should we choose to buy an ISI approved gas stove, pipe and some accessories from him, he would fast track our application.

This attitude and arm twisting makes me mad with anger. I would never give in to ransom and outright Blackmail by anyone wielding power. So I decided to teach him a lesson. Took a picture of my application and the acknowledgement slip. Launched a complaint with the ministry of petroleum and HPCL sub-division via PGPortal.

Got a call within 24 hours from a senior officer in Bombay asking me the agency of choice: Bharatgas, HPCL or Indane. I informed him that my application was pending for over 2 months with HPCL. He assured me of a resolution in the next 24 hours.

The same hero from the local gas agency calls me in a very toned down but stressed out voice. He apologises for his mistake and requests me to "Take my complaint back" or he will lose his job. I tell him that wasn't an option. He assures me a connection within 3 hours and I get my way.

I am not privy to what happened in the back end but I sure as hell had a moment of happiness for not having bowed down to a silly person thinking too highly of himself.

# 2 Dealing with department of Posts:

Just before I set off on a business trip to the US in October last year, I personally went to the RTO for having my recently purchased motorcycle transferred to my name. While I was tracking the proceedings remotely, I could see that the RC card was dispatched in October but wasn't delivered home.

I returned around end November and made a visit to the RTO, they notified me that the RC was sent via regd post. A failure in delivery would lead to the RC book coming back to the GPO of Pune and the RTO has a full fledged counter there to address customer complaints. So I visited this branch and he informed me that the RC's registered post wasn't returned. So I visited my local post office to check the status.

The officer there put me in touch with our local postman whom I confronted. He remembered my name, address and details of this post very clearly. So I asked him why he didn't hand it over to anyone at home. His response was "I had visited during Diwali and got no response from the person answering the door. So I took it back thinking they refused the post."

Turns out my mother-in-law had answered the door and he had asked for "Diwali bakshish" which she said would give some other day as it was a busy day at home. He had made no mention of this package at all.

He had also made the mistake of accepting that the post wasn't available with him at the post office and he had taken it home! So I gave him a piece of my mind and asked him to deliver it to me immediately. This didn't go down well with him and he pretty much decided to not attend to our packages.

Last month, I had ordered a small tube of glue from Amazon which was shipped from Chennai but not delivered in the last mile. I somehow forgot about it in this lockdown mess. Today I needed it and decided to track my order. Turns out the last status was "door locked" on India post's tracking website.

I realised that our postman was wielding power and trying to prove his worth. Simply put up a complaint yesterday on pgportal with the tracking info and historic tracking of the previous package. Had the postman at my door in under 18 hours with profuse apologies for his conduct. He delivered the package and wants me to take my complaint back.

However, this time I chose not to forgive him without teaching him a lesson he will never forget.

Do make use of this generously. It is a tool to cleanup our system.

[coolboy007]

Kudos to PgPortal once again.
I had to transfer our 320D to my name from my father's name as he had unfortunately passed away 2 years back, also had to get the hypothecation removed. The car was registered at Chandigarh RTO and now i reside in Delhi which is 250 kms away. Used the help of an agent to prepare the paperwork which was quite a lot and submitted the documents on 18th September personally at the rto. I was advised that it usually takes 30-40 days to complete the entire process.

30 days passed and nothing happened, even my agent was clueless and blamed it on officials getting covid and things moving in a slow manner. I kept my patience till then, called and mailed multiple times to the RTO but never got a reply from there end. Did not want to involve pgportal as i have used it before and the results are instantaneous, was worried about rto people hassling me even more. Even after 50 days, the status on Vahan was showing as "Verification not started".

After over 50 days, i finally lodged a complaint on pgportal on 12th November under ministry - MORTH. Next day it was showing under process with a memo stating "Request to address the grievance under intimation to the applicant".

Within 6 days that is today, i received a sms from Vahan stating transaction is approved. Checked on parivahan/digilocker and the car is transferred to my name now. The inevitable also happened, got a call from RTO today that the delay was at Bmw Finance's end which does not seem true as they are very efficient. She asked me if i wanted to collect the rc myself or get it posted, i said please keep it with you as i do not want to get hassled by India post now, would personally collect it.

Had used pgportal 3 years back and am so happy and relieved that it works even today. The officials have to answer when the grievance is lodged and they work quickly as well, do use the portal if you are facing any issue.