PANAJI
Over the week when Twitter was abuzz with its imminent and eventual $44 billion takeover of the micro-blogging site by Elon Musk, an ubiquitous handle of the Goa Electricity Department was stirring up its own storm leaving users, both famous and unknown, smitten but politicos fuming with rage.
@Goaelectricity the official Twitter handle of Goa's electricity department usually gives out responses to consumer queries over services and mostly power supply breakdowns.
But in that last week of April when Goa's power transmission and distribution networks were battered by rains and thunderstorms, the employee behind that handle became the toast of tweeples earning widespread sympathy and praise for his honest updates on supply restoration and his unusual departure from bureaucratic and officialdom's lingo.
The official handle of Netflix India was among at least half-a-dozen well known and verified Twitter handles which appreciated the employee behind @Goaelectricity.
“Sending love to the @GoaElectricity admin. Your honest tweets lit up our day. A true Power Ranger,” was Netflix India's tribute which met with a "Proud to have appreciating twitter users like you all who assist in what I achieve. It's power from you all which i see is a fact” response from the employee.
It was from April 24, when the first of a series of days of thunderstorms and gusty winds saw power lines crumbling across Goa and the employee continuously kept updating information on the progress of power restoration work through the night.
But at some point the workload seemingly got to the staffer who began to lace his twitter responses with lingo not common to official government communication.
In one such response, frustration perhaps at being bombarded with queries following the department's helplessness in instantly resolving the power outages slipped into the twitter response.
"I also have no lights and would be anytime fadding aways from you all until supply restored and mobile and laptop charged (sic)," read one of the responses.
A follow-up response said: "Why What??? or why surprise??? I am also a consumer like you now out of office but only a dept person on twitter. No special service to me I go through the same route as you all to find better solutions and to pass it on if any (sic).”
Apart from Netflix India, several other verified users as well as unknown users were seemingly enamoured by the employee who also earned accolades in reportage by noted news platform Quint which suggested a pay hike for the employee. But politicians weren't humoured.
On Monday this week, the employee who department sources revealed is a relatively senior officer, was reprimanded with a 'memo' and narrowly escaped suspension at the instance of an angry Power Minister Ramkrishna Sudin Dhavalikar.
The sources said, the action was diluted to a mere memo that entails negligible punitive effect, only because the entire top hierarchy of the Electricity Department backed the man.
Dhavalikar accused the employee of not following "ethics and principles" of the electricity department to justify serving him with a memo and threatening suspension "if he continues such things in future."
Good news, however is, @Goaelectricity still rocks and truth continues to be winning, at least on Twitter.
