District administration officials have come up with new interventions, including innovative schemes, to mitigate the distress of the people during the impending drought in the coming months.
A mobile application, which will work both on Android and Apple platforms, has been developed to enable the people to get access to local authorities quickly on issues relating to water supply. The app will be ready in a couple of days. The Mobile App Development Competence Centre of the district unit of the National Informatics Centre (NIC) has developed the app and it will be formally released after equipping it with data base. The app gives contact numbers of persons concerned in charge of water kiosks being established in around 1,200 spots. It also gives the public easy access to the Kerala Water Authority’s (KWA) officials involved in complaints monitoring and redress.
“If a water kiosk is damaged or if it remains unfilled, any person with the mobile app can pass on the information to the person concerned in charge of rectifying it,” said NIC District Officer Andrews Varghese. If the name of the panchayat, ward, and water kiosk spot concerned are selected on the app, the app user can get the contact numbers of person or official or water supply tanker contractor concerned, he said adding that the contact numbers can be dialled directly from the app. The data base in the app also gives contact numbers of KWA officials in charge of different areas.
The district administration has already established 355 water kiosks and has identified 838 more spots for starting the kiosks. According to officials, the number of spots where the water kiosks are to be started will go up in the coming weeks. Administrative sanction for constructing the pedestal for 400 kiosks has already been granted, they said.
The NIC officials say the app will be launched soon as the work for adding data, including contact details of panchahyat/ward/KWA officials and water tanker contractor, is in progress.
