Annoyed by an uncovered manhole in their South Delhi locality, two young IT entrepreneurs have developed a mobile app for residents to register complaints with the local civic body.
The app, ‘SDMC Third Eye’, was launched by South Delhi Municipal Corporation’s Standing Committee chairperson Satish Upadhyay on Friday. The free app, which is available for Android-based phones on Google Play Store, was also free of cost for the SDMC.
The developers, Vivek Thakur and Abhishek Sharma, said the app will directly connect South Delhi residents to the civic body. The self-described “social entrepreneurs” also work with Abhipraay Foundation, which is an NGO that focuses on technology-driven solutions to society’s problems.
“We live in Vasant Kunj, where we faced a lot of problems like manholes that were left open for ages and garbage piling up. But, the truth is that 90 per cent of people today don’t want to go to the municipal office to complain,” said Mr. Sharma.
About a month-and-a-half ago, they approached Mr. Upadhyay, who was already looking to do something similar. “This is a social initiative so we didn’t want to charge the SDMC any money,” said Mr. Thakur, an Indian Institute of Technology-Delhi graduate.
The app lets users take a photo or video of problematic spots, give their zone and ward details and the type of grievance, for instance, related to engineering or sanitation. Apart from that, there are comment boxes to give further details. The monitoring of these complaints and their disposal will be done by the Director of the Enforcement Department.
“Most young people today have smartphones, so all they have to do is take a picture of the grievance and fill in details and submit the complaint,” said Mr. Sharma.
The app is a part of the SDMC’s new complaints redress initiative called ‘Advantage-7’. “I’m not going to lie and say that the corporation is working at 100 per cent. Positive criticism leads to improvement,” said Mr. Upadhyay.
As a part of the initiative, complaint boxes will be placed at the four zonal offices of the SDMC, the existing helpline will be expanded to include 24/7 text messaging facility and Mr. Upadhyay will himself hear grievances on the first and fifteenth of each month from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m.
