As rain has been hampering normal life in most parts of the state for the past few days, Express conducted a random check on helplines opened by Gadag district administration to attend to rain-related complaints between 3 am and 4 am on Friday.
Express called the helplines just seven hours after Deputy Commissioner Pandurang Nayak announced their launch.
Calls to Assistant Commissioner’s (AC) office number (08372-238506) and AC I J Gadyal (9886695957) went unanswered.
Also nobody took the calls made to Ron Tahsildar’s office number (08381-267239) and Tahsildar Kadidal (9916558546).
However, Kadidal called back in the morning and said the rain had stopped in the taluk.
Moreover, the numbers announced by DC for Nargund (08377-242430) and Mundargi (08371-262237) were incorrect.
When Nargund Tahsildar C I Ganachari was contacted on his cellphone (99021- 08222) he did not take the call, but called back after five minutes and gave the correct number (08377-245243).
When contacted, Mundargi Tahsildar AT Naregal said his office number was 08371-262235.
The staff at the tahsildar offices at Gadag (08372- 278532) and Shirahatti (08487-242100) attended the calls immediately.
The STD codes of various taluks were not mentioned in DC’s press release.
It should be noted that a majority of the public use mobile phones, and STD codes are required to call landline numbers. Nayak was unavailable for his comments