LDA’s janata adalat turns out to be a damp squib
LUCKNOW: If it was supposed to be an exercise in imagebuilding, Thursday’s muchhyped ‘janata adalat’ organised by the LDA to redress public grievances appeared to have boomeranged on its bosses.
Though officiating LDA vice chairman AP Tiwari himself supervised the public interface, the marathon session failed to solve a single case in its first sitting.
In fact, at one point, officials easily outnumbered the applicants in the sprawling Baradari at LDA office in Gomti Nagar where elaborate arrangements were made for the big exercise.
The show, however, failed to impress the 288 applicants, who had turned up at the venue in the hope of an on-thespot settlement and redressal of their grievances. While the majority left disappointed, patience of a complainant, Mahendra Kumar Kannaujia, ran out when he was asked to come after a month for a hearing in his case.
“They call it an ‘adalat’ but they are unable to dispense justice. Why do they organise such useless events, if they do not want to solve our problems,” he said.
Another applicant, A Hadi, who had come all the way from LDA’s Hardoi Road Scheme, wondered why the development authority had done away with ‘Mitra Diwas’ a similar exercise to redress public grievances started way back in 2003.
“Mitra Diwas organised by the LDA had become so popular that the state government had issued a government order on February 4, 2010 asking other development authorities to hold parallel ‘Mitra Diwas’ in their respective development authorities,” admitted an LDA official.
LDA officials, however, could not explain why it was discontinued. Some hinted at a political motive, saying that perhaps the state government did not want to give mileage to an initiative started by a previous regime.