The road construction department on Wednesday launched a WhatsApp number where people can complain about bad roads.

On seeing a damaged road one can now click pictures on a smartphone and WhatsApp the same to the road construction department at 9470001346. One can leave a comment too.

Under a new road maintenance policy, the onus of maintaining roads owned by the road construction department is on the contractor concerned. The contractors are assigned the responsibility for a period of five years. So, 7,760km of roads are to be maintained for a period of five years and details of the roads and contractors maintaining them are available online.

Earlier, everything was paper-based and it was difficult for the engineers to inspect particular roads.

Earlier, residents could complain about roads by calling a toll free number, 1800-3456-233, sending an email to complainroadmaintenance@gmail.com, posting online at www.rcdbihar.in or writing to the department.

"Whenever the department received a complaint about a damaged road, we used to forward it to the executive engineer by mail," road construction department minister Tejashwi Yadav said.

"However, many a time our official would get back saying the road was not damaged at the location mentioned. There used to be a lot of confusion. So, I decided to make the system more transparent by introducing this service whereby people can send their complaints on WhatsApp along with image and location."

A digital map installed in Tejashwi's chamber indicates the condition of different roads.

A green light on the map indicates good roads, yellow light average roads and red light bad roads.

The engineer on the ground provides information on the condition of roads to the headquarters, where staff then uploads and updates the digital road map.

"We are doing all this to ensure people can reach Patna within five hours from any corner of the state," Tejashwi said. "It is already possible to reach Patna in six hours. We can bring it down to five hours if the condition of roads improves."

Two months ago, the department had introduced computerised online monitoring of road maintenance, GPS-based road ambulance and online registration system for contractors.