They sound like the answer to all your nightmares while driving. Normally, your car works fine, but consider the case when suddenly your car stops in the middle of the journey, leaving you totally helpless. This could be because of a puncture, could be because some other vehicle hit your car, or could be some other problem that is not yet diagnosed (at least, you don’t have the capabilities of a motor mechanic that you can quickly diagnose the problem). Now, you are stuck in the middle of nowhere, and you may not be able to figure out what is wrong with a car; you may not be even in a position that you can change the wheel of the car yourself. In such cases, there are now a number of car distress helplines that promise to help you quickly. Some of these (atleast in the Delhi / NCR region) are FastTrack, Race, Cross-Roads; and before you think that this is an advertising blog for them, this post is to point out a few problems in their functioning.
I have tried out a few of them, and performance has dipped badly in the last few years. Their promise is that they will be there within 30 minutes of filing a complaint; now the most common scenario is that of female family members and friends; if they get a puncture, it is not feasible for some of them to do the actual changing of the tyre. Further, you don’t know where it can happen, and if you have a service where you can get a tire replaced within 30 minutes, that is great.
Now, that was the promise. Unfortunately, the promise is not getting fulfilled. With 2 of these vendors (Race and CrossRoads), I have had a bad experience. In both case, there was a puncture, and a lady was waiting after calling them. They promised 30 minutes, but even 1 hour later, no trace. You call them again, and they were getting rude (Ma’am, they are coming, you need to wait). Finally, after 1.5 hours, we managed to make some local arrangements (the good part was that this happened at a place where it was crowded, so there was no safety issue). However, this is bad customer service - promising something that involved safety and convenience, and then not delivering. I will be very hesitant the next time they ask me for money for this service.
I wonder what the experience of other people with such kind of services has been like ?

One always thinks of the Government as being slow, not able to catch onto the latest technology trends, and using old procedures. However, this is not always true, and the Government has been able to surprise us many times by showing its ability to adopt some of the newer technologies, and at the same time, do so with the required safe-guards. So, first we had the railways ticket booking website, http://irctc.co.in, and then we have the Tax Authority of the country trying to use all modern trends for tax filing. So, if you refer to the website (link) for Income Tax India, you will be able to download forms, and read more about details related to your tax filing. The website even has a very basic Tax calculator (link)
The entire procedure for paying tax online is initiated at this link (link), with a more detailed explanation about how to find list of banks, making payment and challan details, getting receipt / confirmation, etc available at these 2 documents (link 1, link 2). If you prefer to pay online with some more help, then there are various 3rd parties that can help you with the payment process (you can fill in a simple filing, or opt for a higher package if you have more sources of income besides a simple Form 16, and some of them even give an option of walking into their office and filing in the details). Here are the links to these sites:
1. http://www.taxspanner.com/ (Including the option of getting a digital signature). Read more at the Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)
2. http://www.taxsmile.com/. Read more about it on the Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)
3. http://www.taxshax.com/. Read more at the Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)

How many times have you dreaded the prospect of paying a utility bill. Where the electricity or water is provided by a Government department, the prospect of queuing up outside a dingy office, with a long queue and in the hot sun is one that most people shirk from doing, until absolutely necessary. Hence the concept of either the friendly neighborhood all-purpose man who will do this duty for a price, or the private companies who are making it a business to make it easy to pay utility bills. However, sometimes even the Government can think about citizens, and make it easier for them to pay such bills:

BANGALORE: Ever wanted to pay your utility bills while at a mall or supermarket? This could soon be possible, with the directorate of Electronic Delivery of Citizen Services (EDCS) likely to set up BangaloreOne kiosks at shopping centres soon.
As a pilot project, a supermarket on Bannerghatta Road is expected to have the first B1 kiosk. The supermarket kiosks will be open from 8 am to 8 pm and have two-three counters with six executives. Once the space is handed over, it will take a few days to set up the interiors.
A month ago, EDCS launched miniature BangaloreOne centres — B1 kiosks — at 20 locations across the city. The kiosks have registered over 50,000 transactions within 30 days.

It is when you read about such attempts by the Government that you think that there is still hope, that the Government is indeed adapting to changed environments. One has to see as to how many states will think of copying such initiatives.