Helpline: One telephone off, another says call tomorrow

Hyderabad, May 10: One of the two phones at the Water Board control room was turned off on Sunday, typifying the response of the government to the health crisis.

Callers from the old city who tried the telephone number 64620238 got a computerised response: “The phone is switched off.”
Asked about it, the Water Board director (technical), Mr M. Satyanarayana, said, “It was brought to my notice. We issued instructions to the other control room in Paradise (telephone 23447518) to receive complaints and forward them to the division offices.”
This correspondent called the Paradise control room where a telephone operator, Mr David, received the call and took down a complaint on water contamination. He said the Rapid Action Team could not be sent immediately. “Today is a Sunday, officials worked till evening and left,” he said.
The lone functioning control room received 21 calls, 14 on contamination.