The Municipal Corporation of Gurgaon (MCG) has finally appointed a nodal officer for the redressal of public grievances.

The appointment of Rita Dalal on the post has come nearly two years after the Haryana chief secretary issued a directive in this regard. "We are in the process of forming MCG sub-groups on sanitation, enforcement, building plans and grievances concerning the engineering wing. Earlier, the complaints and queries that came through a centralised website of the state government, Harsamadhan, were just forwarded to MCG. But now, specific grievances will be sent to the respective sub groups," Dalal told HT.

Complaints lodged by the people at Harsamadhan are linked to the official website of the departments concerned.

"We are presently looking at clearing the pendency of about 1,500 public grievances registered through Harsamadhan. These are related to sanitation, encroachment, building plans and other issues concerning the engineering wing," Dalal said. 

If any sub-group fails to address a grievance timely, the issue will be escalated to the highest level through the office of the nodal officer, he added.

More than 50,000 grievances relating to house tax has been pending to be resolved.

The collection of over R600 crore house tax accrued since the inception of MCG in 2008 has been a challenge for the civic body. The residents, especially those living in private developers' areas, have refused to pay house tax on the ground that they have already paying maintenance and security charges to their developers.

Ironically, the Haryana Urban Development Authority (Huda) is yet to appoint a nodal officer for the purpose.