In barely 2 hours, PCMC settles complaint of an Italian student

A first year arts student of Fergusson College, Eleonoro is in Pune as part of the Indo-Italian cultural exchange programme under the aegis of the American Field Service. She stays with the Rao family of Pradhikaran. She had asked her father to send her a camera so that she could capture Ajanta caves for posterity. After being overcharged for the camera, Eleonora immediately sounded her father in Italy. Her father told her to forget it "as it would not be possible for her to get the money back."

But the teenager refused to give up. On March 26, along with Ganesh Rao, her local guardian, she filed a written complaint with Vijaysinh Deshmukh, PCMC assistant municipal commissioner. "In the complaint, I pointed out how the PCMC octroi department had been unfair to me. And that justice be done to me," said Eleonora.

Two hours after she filed the complaint, Eleonora had joy written all over her face. Acknowledging the mistake, the PCMC gave a cheque of Rs 1,400 to Eleonora, charging only Rs 300 as octroi. The cheque was personally handed over to Eleonora by Deshmukh in his office. Deshmukh said on the invoice that came from Italy, the figure "10 Euros" had a coma after 10 and two zeroes. "Because of the coma, our officials thought the cost of the camera was 1000 Euros. Hence, the mistake," he said. "The moment Eleonora filed the complaint with Deshmukh, he wasted no time in bringing justice to her," said Rao, who was amazed at the speed with which PCMC went about the task. "In flat two hours, the PCMC settled the complaint. This is the first time I have seen a government office working so fast," said Rao. Officials said handing over a cheque in two hours or settling a complaint this fast do not happen in PCMC. Such things take months to settle.

The PCMC officers and staff were "extra nice" to Eleonora. First it was Deshmukh who heard the girl's complaint patiently, offered her tea and then directed his officers to probe her complaint immediately. Like Deshmukh, the accounts department too worked with zeal to hand over the cheque to Eleonora.