City slips to seventh position in redressing complaints on social media

Gurugram: After retaining the third position among 22 districts from July till November for time-bound redressal of grievances registered on social media platforms,

Gurugram: After retaining the third position among 22 districts from July till November for time-bound redressal of grievances registered on social media platforms, such as Twitter and Facebook, Gurugram slipped to the seventh position in January.

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According to the data shared by a Social Media Grievance Tracker (SMGT) team, the district from December 1, 2019 to January 2020 registered over 1,200 complaints on encroachments, poor condition of roads, illegal constructions, electricity supply, and other issues.

Although complaints were acknowledged in the given time span of five hours, most of the complaints relating to the department of town and country planning (DTCP) and Dakshin Haryana Bijli Vitran Nigam (DHBVN) could not be resolved, taking the overall redressal rate to 89%. This has come down from 98% which was reported from July to November 2019.

Silky Sukhija, a programmer who oversaw the SMGT in Gurugram, said that most of the pending complaints are with the DTCP. “In January we have received more than 1,000 complaints, of which 400 are under the DTCP jurisdiction to which they are not responding.”

Affirming that DTCP has been handling cases, R S Bhath, district town planner, who is having the additional charge of the enforcement, said, “We are taking action on complaints which are related to planning and enforcement. But there are certain cases largely dealing with policy matters and involve builders too. There are certain inter-departmental issues as well. We are already conducting demolition drive across the city to prevent sprawling of illegal colonies and encroachment for better infrastructure facilities.”

The online grievance redressal mechanism was set up in the state in 2017. The SMGT ranks districts on the basis of responsiveness, quality of action taken report, overdue and disposal of complaints on time. Each of these indicators contains weightage based on which they are assigned score. Like responsiveness in taking up the complaint and raising the ticket hold 20% weightage. As many as 25% weightage each is assigned for the clarification received in the action taken report and overdue of complaints, while 30% for disposal of complaints. Through an internal automation process handled from Chandigarh, scores are given to each district.

Officials say the core SMGT team in Chandigarh mostly takes up those complaints that can be resolved within two-three days. Complaints are filtered at different levels like it should mention the name and phone number of the complainant along with @cmohary tagged to it. Thereafter, the coordinator in Chandigarh sends the complaint to the SMGT team in respective districts for redressal.

“The district-level team acknowledges the complaint, raises a ticket number and sends it to the department concerned. These complaints are to be addressed in a time-bound manner — between 24 and 48 hours,” said Sukhija.

Mentioning that several cases require more than 15 days to be resolved, she said, “The department concerned will have to send a mail citing the reasons for the time sought. The complaint is temporarily closed till then and on the 14th day it is again opened by the Chandigarh team.” Interestingly, complaints that cannot be resolved within 15 days due to financial matters are closed or in certain cases sent directly to deputy commissioner’s office.

The SMGT is a part of the Chief Minister’s Good Governance Associates (CMGGA) Programme to fix the accountability. Swati Rajmohan, CMGGA associate, said, “We have been consistently performing well in addressing grievances reported on social media. Certain departments are lagging behind in resolving the complaint as of which the district has come down in the overall ranking. Soon, we would be holding the review meeting with different departments on their performance.”

Currently, Karnal, which is also CM’s constituency, retained the top position in addressing complaints. Yamunanagar, which stood at the tenth position in November, climbed to the second position followed by Faridabad in the third position.