Dear MSEDC,

You're a Company now. That doesn't necessarily mean, as I overheard one of your office boys explain to a hapless customer, "We're a company now. We won't tolerate non-payment of bills. If you don't pay, we'll cut off your electricity."

What it actually means is that you no longer have slaves dependent upon your whims and fancies, you have customers.

I hope you understand, dear MSEDC, that if you now have the right to demand payment, you also have the responsibility to deliver service that justifies that payment. That service, respected MSEDC, is not limited to switching on power when you wish to and switching it off when things get too hot. It extends to helping your customers when you screw up.

Your agency read my meter wrong, dear MSEDC. As a consequence, I have lost FOUR DAYS in which I could have generated money instead of standing around waiting for the persons concerned to come out of their meetings with the Press and address my problem. Being a company, dear MSEDC, you will appreciate that a person not working does not create wealth. Try and apply that principle to your employees as well. If they don't work, they create no wealth for your company and you then lose your job. You can't, as one of your supervisors did, hide behind the excuse that an apprentice was sent to do a professional's job and therefore screwed up.

You're a Company, dear MSEDC. Behave like one. Or be annihilated.

NB: MSEDC - Maharashtra State Electricity Distribution Company, the erstwhile MSEB, was created with the intention of streamlining power distribution in Maharashtra, eliminating power theft and ensuring a steady supply of electricity. It was felt that a company would function more efficiently than a Board, which had concommitant responsibilities of also ensuring security of tenure of employees (read, if they didn't work, no one could fire them) and social justice.

All I feel is half a day waiting for the Sahibs and the other half waiting for electricity.

Deepak