commuterJammu, Oct 29 (PTI) A Jammu and Kashmir governmentdepartment has said it has served a notice to Messrs PawanHans Limited after receiving a complaint of "deficiency inservices and adopting unfair trade practices" against thehelicopter service provider.
A complaint was received against the helicopter serviceprovider claiming that a family of four were left stranded atthe airport on September 29 despite getting boarding passes onthe day of travel, Deputy Controller of Legal MetrologyDepartment (LMD), consumer protection, Manoj Prabhakar toldPTI.
The Department of Legal Metrology is a consumerorganisation involved in regulating market by conductingextensive market-checking to prevent unfair trade practices.
The helicopter service between Jammu and Poonch, and,Jammu and Rajouri districts started last month.
He has said taking cognisance of the complaint, thedepartment has established a case against the service providerand would move to the consumer court soon.
"The complainant paid the fare for their travel fromJammu to Rajouri one day in advance and after a few hours ofwait they were provided boarding passes on the day of travel.
"However, they were left in between and other people whocame later were boarded on the chopper leaving the complainantalong with family members stranded at the airport without anyjustification from the management," he has said.
Prabhakar said that since the aggrieved commuters couldnot reach their destination and also their money was notrefunded, they filed a complaint to the department fordeficiency in services by the service provider.
He said inspection of records revealed that boardingpasses were issued to the persons but they were denied serviceat the last minute.
The department has served a notice to the Pawan Hansmanagement on October 1, but no reply was received from theirside except telephonic message for granting time to reply,Prabhakar said, adding a final notice has been issued onFriday.
Asked to comment on the issue, a Pawan Hans officialtoday told PTI, "The state government hired our chopper. Theydecide on air fare and issue tickets to passengers and we donot deal with passengers, we only deal with the stategovernment."Prabhakar said the government being the custodian ofconsumer rights under the Consumer Protection Act, the LMDdepartment has taken the records related to travel of thecommuters and issued final notice to the service provider onFriday for deficiency in service, adopting unfair tradepractices and making the commuters suffer despite beingcharged the fare. PTI TAS JCNSD.
This is unedited, unformatted feed from the Press Trust of India wire.
