Power failures, seepages, water-logging, monkeys, stray dogs and garbage piled up in front of the house. If you think these are problems that only you face, you can’t be more wrong: you are in a very elite company.

The complaint register of the New Delhi Municipal Council for the first three months of the year shows several such complaints from the Capital’s VVIPs from the President and Prime Minister to ministers and diplomats. Here are some of the 2,137 complaints:

• Rashtrapati Bhavan: The staff called twice to complain about wild langurs, four times about stray dogs (two of them even got inside the Rashtrapati Bhavan) and once about a theft of electricity from the President’s estate.

• The Prime Minister’s residence: There were eight complaints about power failure including two complete blackouts for the SPG staff, two calls about fire on electric poles and once a request to shut down power due to a short-circuit in the streetlights. There were six complaints for sewage flooding and water leakages and two about monkey meance.

• Parliament: A rather emotional complaint from the Parliament Control Room rocked the NDMC. It said “the Indian Tricolour has been hung upside down” just as a foreign dignitary was about to visit. NDMC officials rushed to the spot with ropes and ladders and rectified the fault just before the media arrived. A few days later, another complaint said “the national flag has fallen”, prompting a group of staff to rush to the site.

... contd.