The civic body has decided to set up a special communication cell at its headquarters to engage with city residents and address their grievances more actively.

The Bhubaneswar Municipal Corporation will hire a consultant that will undertake various activities to take it closer to the residents with the help of social media platforms, official websites of the corporation, community engagement programmes and also through various media organisations.

“It is important to get closer to the residents to ensure delivery of good governance. The communication cell will help us hear the problems of the people and also provide us with a platform to dissimilate information about our various schemes and activities. The cell will act as a bridge between the people and us,” said mayor Ananta Narayan Jena.

Officials at the communication cell will create content for the official websites of the civic body and will also be present on social media platforms — such as Twitter and Facebook. City residents will be able to reach out to the civic body through these online platforms to get their problems addressed.

“The communication cell will remain responsible for an array of things — such as grievance redress system and awareness activities on various issues and schemes. It will collect feedbacks from the users and forward the same to respective sections. We will be able to improve our services this way,” said a senior civic official.

The consultant will be selected through a tendering process that is likely to get completed by the end of December. “We have already prepared the proposal for the selection of the consultant. The selected one will supply the manpower and draft plans on behalf of us,” said the official.

City residents welcomed the move. “It is not possible to reach out to the civic body by visiting its headquarters with petty grievances all the time. I have been posting problems of the city on Twitter very often hoping for a solution, but to get disappointment most of times. I think the civic body do not have enough manpower to manage it,” said city resident Priti Jena.