The Bhind district administration has suspended an official whose account on the Chief Minister’s helpline was used to inform a complainant that he was mad and the hand pump he had complained of would be fixed on his chest.
The login credentials of an Executive Engineer of the Public Health Engineering Department were used to respond to the query, said Arun Sharma, Assistant Director, Bhind district administration. “Another official had sent the absurd response using it, which was taken into cognisance by the Collector,” he said.
The Collector wrote to the department in Bhopal on Thursday afternoon, and the official was suspended at night. Officials said work on the hand pump had resumed.
Rahul Dixit, 31, of the Lahar block had complained on June 7 that the hand pump installed in his village eight months ago remained non-functional as its construction remained incomplete. “Only the boring has been done, but all the instruments haven’t been installed,” he wrote in the complaint.
The department, after closing the complaint, responded: “According to the Executive Engineer, the complainant is mad and suffers from epileptic seizures, speaks rubbish. His whole family gets seizures.”
The response further said, “The hand pump is not non-functional but his brain is. The entire department knows this mad person even tore clothes of my hand pump mechanic. Now the time has come to wage a Chinese battle in the guerilla style. The hand pump will be uprooted and fixed on the chest of the complainant.”
Mr. Dixit told The Hindu he had no clue why such a response was given. “It hurt me, as it was baseless. We are just seeking our rights.”
At the Rahawali village, he said, 30 families had been seeking the hand pump for more than a year. “We first approached the sub-engineer who gave no response, which prompted me to dial the CM helpline number 181. I don’t have any personal animosity against anyone in the department.”