After scrapping the long-held tradition of holding grievance day meetings on Tuesdays, the civic body asked the public to post the grievances on a social networking platform. After sometime, it changed the platform.
Then came the Swachhata App. In the run up to the Swachh Sarvekshan rankings, the Corporation promoted the use of the ‘App’ by asking students to download.
In addition to the App, the Corporation announced that it would also send vehicles with grievance redress box across the city for residents to drop their grievance in the box so that they need not go to either the Corporation zone office concerned or the main office in Town Hall.
The vehicle goes to a zone a day from Monday to Friday and at the end of the day reaches the zonal head quarters where the officials take up those for redressing.
Sources in the Corporation say that the vehicle starts at 10 a.m. and stops at vantage points in various wards to collect petitions. It returns by 4 p.m. A zone has 20 wards but the vehicle does not cover all the wards. The sources say that the vehicle stops at a locality for half-an-hour to 45 minutes before it moves on to the next. After the halt, the Corporation employee, calls people over a public address system for petitions.
The vehicle can at the maximum cover 13 wards a day - or 13 stops a day. This exercise has resulted in the Corporation getting 10-15 petitions a zone a day.
On very few occasions, the number of petitions touched 20. Likewise, there have also been occasions when the number of petitions was fewer than five, the sources say. After the officials collect the petitions in the evenings, they act the next day if the complaint is not complicated - faulty street light or choked drainage. If the complaint pertains to road or other things that require construction, the Corporation takes time, officials say.
But not many are convinced. It’s a novel idea and the novelty may disappear after sometime. The Corporation does not announce the place where the vehicles would stop, though it has given the days on which the vehicle would visit wards. This does not give time for the public to react.
The initiative also separates the public from the officials as the two will not come face to face, says former Councillors. They want the Corporation to restore the old practice of holding grievance day, especially in the absence of the Council. The district administration does it on Mondays and the Corporation must do it on Tuesdays, as it had been doing so, they add.
