– Decision on new app launch on Friday
Nagpur :- In absence of elected representatives and a proper user friendly system of grievance redressal, citizens are unable to draw Nagpur Municipal Corporation’s (NMC’s) attention for resolving their issues. The NMC had launched a user-friendly mobile app but shut it down without any announcement. The ‘Nagpur Live City’ app appears to have died a silent death.
The twitterati are having a gala time at the expense of the municipal body. “It’s been 15 days and your “bin-man” isn’t ready to remove garbage even after several requests,” wrote a user tagging the NMC on twitter and sharing pictures of the muck. “Also I am unable to file an official complaint on the Nagpur Live City app due to an error on your app,” the twitter lamented.
It isn’t that the NMC is not alert to the problems being faced by citizens. They have proposed to launch a new application called ‘My Nagpur’ which forms a part of a more elaborate plan to update NMC’s e-governance or Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP).
However, as often happens with the NMC, the launch is already delayed. Civic officials had told Lokmat Times that the app will be up in the third or fourth week of May. It’s mid-July now and the app is nowhere to be seen.
“We were going to launch the application in June but then the Buldhana accident happened and later NMC commissioner Radhakrishnan B was transferred. We have apprised the new commissioner a couple of days ago and should soon be launching the app,” said Assistant Commissioner and Information & Technology Head in NMC, Mahesh Dhamecha.
He also added that the new app is more user friendly and will have 47 services which are essential under right to service act apart from complaint redressal option and many other features. “Initially we will provide at least 15 services through the app and as time passes new services will be added,” he said. Dhamecha said, citizens can still file complaints on the NMC website. “The civic body has received around 1350 complaints out of which 70 percent have been satisfactorily resolved,” he revealed.
Citizens are none too pleased. One sarcastically observed that it takes time to understand a new application and by the time a user masters it, the NMC changes the rules of the game. “After a long awareness drive people start using an application but NMC every now and then closes these apps without telling anyone and creates new one. This is a waste of taxpayer’s money,” he said, adding that people are facing several civic issues like water logging in many areas in the city.
The NMC’s social media handle is flooded with complaints of citizens and many times, some allege, NMC even hides critical comments or tweets. The civic body spends lakhs of rupees every month on social media and has also hired a company to handle it. Apart from this, a social media coordinator has also been hired by the civic body but complaints of Nagpurians remain unresolved.
