Municipal officers claim that the civic bodies’ Facebook pages have seen a decline in activity over the past few months as Delhiites have fewer sanitation-related complaints now.
However, a look at the pages on Thursday reveals that they have not been used as intended. The North Delhi Municipal Corporation (facebook.com/ndmcdelhi) has not posted anything since October 4 last year, when it said 50 complaints had been received and 25 were pending redressal.
The three municipal corporations’ Facebook pages were set up in 2012 and are run by the Sanitation Departments, in order to address citizens’ grievances about the lack of cleanliness. Political leadership in the civic bodies has announced many times that the pages would be updated on daily basis, with details of the number of complaints as well as action taken.
The South Delhi Municipal Corporation’s page ( facebook.com/sdmcdelhi ) posts an update on complaints every day. As per posts between December 10 last and Thursday, the SDMC had only received one complaint in that duration. The post on December 10 says the total number of complaints received was 475 and 448 of them had been resolved. As per a post on Thursday evening, the number of complaints was 476, of which 449 were addressed. The East Delhi Municipal Corporation on the other hand only posts pictures of sanitation workers on the field, but does not provide any information on complaints. Its page ( facebook.com/edmcdelhi ) has many before and after pictures of dhalaos, roads etc.
An IT officer overseeing the three pages said the number of complaints had gone down after the launch of the Swachh Bharat campaign on October 2, after which cleanliness has been improved. “We would like more public participation, but if instances of insanitation are going down, then participation will also. We are conducting surprise checks on the grounds to verify the complaints we get,” said the officer.
The spokesperson for the North and East civic bodies, Y.S. Mann, said people prefer to register their complaints in person and informally. “Usually people will walk up to their local sanitary inspector or even councillor if they have any complaints,” said Mr. Mann.
However, people are still posting on the pages with questions about the status of their complaints and pictures of dirty garbage dumps and streets. These posts remain unaddressed.
