Ranchi Municipal Corporation (RMC) should take a leaf out of the book of Janseva helpline, the e services of Ranchi MLA and state urban development and housing minister C.P. Singh, to learn how to be professional and punctual in sorting out civic complaints of common people.

Janseva Centre manned by 12 employees completed two years of service on Monday with a strike rate of 94 per cent in resolving public complaints.

In the past two years, Janseva helpline received 2,638 complaints of which 2,448 complaints were resolved to the satisfaction of the complainants.

MLA Singh initially launched the portal for people of his Vidhan Sabha constituency but soon all 55 wards of the RMC were brought within its ambit.

Janseva call centre works from 10am to 5pm from Mondays to Saturdays with a dedicated phone number 9570444411 where people can lodge their complaints related to civic amenities, roads, drainage, water and sanitation, power, holding tax, district administration and police, transport department, excise, commercial tax and others. People can complain on the website www.cpsinghmla.com, mail id ourcopsingh@gmail.com and the twitter handle twitter.com/bjpcpsingh.

Janseva data suggests as many as 1,008 complaints registered were directly or indirectly linked with RMC such as filth, blind streetlights, disrupted water supply, BSNL telephone snags and others. Three hundred and twenty-two complaints were related to Ranchi police, 194 to the offices of the DC and Ranchi Sadar SDO, 41 to the electricity department, among others.

People perceive that the minister's e-services are faster and more responsive compared to the much bigger organisation RMC.

'For 30 years I had no RMC domestic water connection at my Sukhdeonagar house. To my surprise, RMC slapped me a water bill of Rs 31,800. I submitted applications to the RMC which bore no result. Then, I lodged my complaint at Janseva in November 2015 and within 15 days my problem was sorted out,' Ranchi complainant Trilochan Singh recalled.

Ranjan Kumar, a resident of Kanke Road, shared a similar experience. 'A week ago, somebody threw a rotten carcass. I lodged a complaint with Janseva and within an hour RMC workers removed it,' Ranjan said.

Shiv Narayan Mishra of Kokar got his bike stolen in January 2016 which was recovered by police within a day. When the police demanded money for its release, Mishra waited for five months and then lodged a complaint with Janseva. The police released his bike in two days.

Minister Singh routinely reviews the complaints. 'I can only say that perhaps RMC officials aren't too concerned about the public. I've asked all my Janseva staff to serve the public and resolve their problems promptly. I am an elected representative and why will people vote for me if I can't help them,' Singh, who also happens to be the RMC boss by virtue of his being state urban development minister, said.

He added every complaint gets equal importance and no complaint is closed till the solution satisfies complainants.

'While RMC has to deal with only civic related issues, we go beyond that. We are gradually trying to increase the base of our services,' said Janseva centre director Ritesh Kumar Gupta.

RMC helpline 1800 3456530 receives around 30 complaints a day. Additional municipal commissioner Divyanshu Kumar Jha said they tried their best. 'People lodge long and short term complaints. Long-term complaints about roads or water supply naturally take time to solve,' he said, adding the 'tardy work culture' of their outsourced company Essel Infra Projects for civic maintenance was a problem.

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