Patna Municipal Corporation (PMC) would launch a mobile app after Diwali for residents to lodge complaints.
PMC commissioner Jai Singh said the National Informatics Centre (NIC) was developing the application for the civic body free of cost.
“This is a one-of-its-kind initiative taken by the municipal corporation. Residents would be able to lodge complaints regarding sanitation, streetlight, encroachment, illegal construction among other issues. We are hoping that the mobile application would help improve the functioning of the corporation,” he said.
Singh added that the application would be known as Apna Ghar and it would be available on the Google Play Store.
“Anyone having a smartphone would be able to lodge a complaint,” he said.
Sources said the PMC commissioner has already given instructions to the officials to buy smartphones if they did not have one, so that they could stay updated.
Residents had a mixed response on the PMC’s initiative.
Swarna Singh, a resident of Boring Road hailed the civic agency for taking the initiative.
“I am a teacher with a private school. I don’t get much time to go to the PMC office and lodge a complaint even
if I come across any problem in its functioning. Now that we would have access to the mobile application, we would be able to register our complaints easily. It is definitely a good initiative,”
she said.
Pawan Kumar Mishra, a Nageshwar Colony resident, however, differed.
“Most of the times the PMC doesn’t take our complaints seriously. I don’t think the mobile application would make any difference in our lives,” he said.
PMC officials, however, looked convinced about the initiative.
“At present, there is no mechanism through which each and every complaint can reach to the PMC commissioner. With the help of the mobile application, higher authorities, including the commissioner, would be updated about each and every complaint and the commissioner would get things done by the officials concerned. We have a WhatsApp group but that’s only for the officials of the PMC. For residents, this would be a platform where they would be able to lodge their grievances. This is good,” said Vishal Singh, an executive officer of New Patna Circle of PMC.
Vishal said even now the PMC gets complaints on a regular basis from residents at its control room numbers. He claimed that all the complaints were being addressed.
