KARACHI, May 12 The police department has topped a list of complaints lodged at the Chief Minister's Public Complaint Cell, followed by district governments and the education department, it has emerged.

As each and every member of the Sindh cabinet, whether a minister or an adviser, is reportedly suffering from security problems, the CM public complaint cell becomes the only forum through which the general public could approach the provincial ministers and advisers by dialing its toll-free telephone number, 919, to lodge their complaints against any government department and civic utilities. Every day, two members of the CM Qaim Ali Shah's cabinet perform their duty in the complaint cell on different timings, and they personally received complaints over phone. However, despite this, the number of people approaching the cell has dwindled over the year as the cell was receiving an average of 14 complaints per day.

Statistics obtained by this reporter showed that a total of 532 complaints were lodged with the CM public complaint cell during the period ranging from March 7 to April 14. Of them, 102 complaints had been resolved and 430 complaints were still pending. The police department topped the list, as out of 532 complaints lodged during the same period, 291 were against the police.

It is learnt that majority of the complaints against the police relate to delays in the registration of the FIRs, inaction of the police, etc. Most of the people have no other option but to lodge their complaint at the CM public complaint cell when the police refuse to lodge their complaints.

In the March 7-April 14 period, the CM complaint cell received 70 complaints against district governments, 24 against the education department followed by 21 complaints against the Karachi Building Control Authority, 15 against the local government and 13 complaints against the revenue department.

During a recent visit to the CM public complaint centre, situated in the annexe of the CM House, this reporter found Local Government Minister Agha Siraj Durrani sitting at the cell along with his staff and representatives of civic organisations for dealing with public complaints.

“It is the easiest and most effective forum for a common man to approach a minister and inform him about his problem,” Mr Durrani said.

Although Mr Durrani sounded quite upbeat about the functioning of the cell, most, if not all, representatives of the civic utilities, who were deputed at the cell from their parent departments, presented a look of typically exhausted government servants. However, officials at the CM House insisted that the people were approaching the authorities at the cell by dialing 919, the toll free telephone number.