Borough offices of Kolkata Municipal Corporation (KMC) need to be more active and accessible so that people first go there to solve their problems instead of coming to the civic body’s headquarters, the administrator of KMC Smita Pandey told civic body’s officials in her first meeting as administrator on Tuesday.
Pandey said that KMC will make its social media handles more active as a medium for public interface.
As councillors no longer hold office, it is important for the civic body to be able to know the problems that citizens are facing.
Calcuttans too should be able to reach out to KMC for any problem, whether it be a drainage issue or paucity in potable water supply.
On Monday, the state dissolved the Trinamool-run KMC board on Monday, appointing Pandey as the administrator. She was already the commissioner of KMC, a post to which she was appointed in March by the Election Commission ahead of the state Assembly elections.
Pandey told Metro that among her priorities were the seamless implementation of fourteen central government schemes in the city, including Ayushman Bharat and Annapurna Yojana.
The census, which will start from August 1, is another important obligation that Pandey will have to supervise as the administrator and commissioner.
“I told the KMC officials on Tuesday that a lot of work should be executed at the borough level. People come to the KMC headquarters for very simple issues that should be solved at the borough level. Why should people have to come so far while we have offices in all the boroughs?” Pandey said.
“We have to make the borough offices more active, accessible and visible to people so that they have no inhibition in visiting borough offices. We have infrastructure of all departments at the borough level, and they must be used to their best,” she said.
There are sixteen boroughs for the 144 Wards in Calcutta. Pandey, who earlier served as district magistrate of East Midnapore and North Dinajpur, drew an analogy from district administrations. “The borough officials should be like sub-divisional officers who should solve most of the problems in their sub-divisions,” she said.
The dissolution of the civic body poses a risk that a KMC without any elected representatives may lose its connection with the people.
“We are making our social media handles more active as it will be an important space for our interaction with people. I will urge common people to raise complaints on social media handles or tag us with any complaint. We will address them. We need to know if people are facing any problems,” she said.
Pandey was appointed administrator of KMC after Firhad Hakim resigned as mayor on Friday. The state government wrote to KMC asking its authorities why the corporation should not be dissolved. Based on KMC’s reply, the government felt it was prudent to dissolve the corporation and appoint an administrator, sources said.
Keeping waste collection and street cleaning seamless, ensuring that potable drinking water reached all pockets, ensuring vaccination of those covered by KMC’s health clinics and improving the condition of its schools were also among Pandey’s priorities.
Making Calcutta ready to deal with common challenges faced every monsoon — waterlogging and broken roads — is among the KMC’s immediate priorities.
KMC engineers and officials have often complained that funds have dried up in recent years, affecting project implementation. Sources said the state municipal affairs department is likely to ease the fund flow by the end of this month or early next month.
