A phone-in programme where Calcuttans will be able to raise complaints about civic services or give suggestions — similar to the now-defunct Talk to Mayor programme run by former mayor Firhad Hakim — will start from Tuesday.

Municipal affairs and urban development minister Agnimitra Paul will take the calls between 3pm and 4pm.

Any aggrieved Calcuttan can call the toll-free number 18002035123 to speak to Agnimitra in the programme named Mukhomukhi.

Agnimitra will take the calls from Nagarayan, the headquarters of the department she heads, in Salt Lake.

Sources said she will only take calls from residents of the Kolkata Municipal Corporation (KMC) area on Tuesday, but there are plans to expand the phone-in programme to residents of other municipal areas too.

“Tuesday’s phone-in programme is meant for residents of the KMC area. There
are talks to have a similar phone-in programme for residents of at least the other six municipal corporation areas in Bengal,” said an official of the department.

“It will be a weekly programme and a day of the week reserved for it. Whether it will be Tuesday every week or any other day will be decided soon,” said another official.

Some of the chief engineers and other department heads of the KMC have been asked to remain present in Nagarayan on Tuesday, while some others will join the programme virtually.

Besides the KMC, the other six municipal corporations in Bengal are Bidhannagar Municipal Corporation, Howrah Municipal Corporation, Chandernagore Municipal Corporation, Siliguri Municipal Corporation, Durgapur Municipal Corporation and Asansol Municipal Corporation.

Bengal also has 121 municipalities. A municipal corporation deals with a larger area and population than a municipality. It was not immediately clear if there would be phone-in programmes for all these municipalities, too.

Since the BJP government came to power in the state, the Trinamool Congress-run boards of more than 40 municipal bodies have been dissolved. Councillors of many of the municipal bodies resigned.

Among the municipal bodies whose boards had to be dissolved are the municipal corporations of Calcutta and Bidhannagar.

Howrah Municipal Corporation did not have an elected board since 2018, as no polls were held there.

The state government has appointed administrators after the boards were dissolved. “Senior IAS officers were appointed administrators in the KMC and Bidhannagar, while in the districts, sub-divisional officers were usually appointed administrators of municipal bodies...,” added the official.

Sources said the phone-in programme will make the municipal bodies more accountable as people will get an opportunity to directly reach out to the minister.