Nagpur: “It is nothing but the same old story.” Now, Nagpur Municipal Corporation (NMC) is mulling to start a toll free number that will be exclusive for accepting citizens’ complaints about civic services.
It is seen that the Nagpur Municipal Corporation is failing to solve the basic problems of the citizens. Even though there is no complaint box at NMC Headquarters for citizens, they are advised to complain on social media or online. But even on social media, the NMC indulges in marketing by solving ‘special’ complaints. But the scenario is that the complaints of common people are not taken into account.
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Saturday 22 Feb. 2025
Addressing a meeting of civic body officials at NMC Headquarters, on Friday, Additional Municipal Commissioner Anchal Goyal said, “NMC is right now testing the toll free number facility. Once the new complaint system becomes functional, citizens would be able to get updates about the status of their problems as the same would be monitored by senior officials on a daily basis.”
It may be mentioned that of the 1,434 complaints received online from December 1, NMC resolved 1,423. For the same, the civic body also sought feedback from citizens who provided a 5-star rating to 888 complaints, 4-star to 279, 1-star to 124 complaints. Goyal took review of the online complaints redressal system.
The meeting was attended by Deputy Municipal Commissioners Vijay Deshmukh, Milind Meshram, Prakash Varade, Ganesh Rathod, Ashok Garate and Dr Ranjana Lade; Superintending Engineer Shweta Banerjee; Assistant Municipal Commissioners Harish Raut, Ghanshyam Pandhre, Narendra Bawankar, Vikas Raibole, Vijay Thool, Pramod Wankhede, Rajendra Rathod and Narendra Bawankar; Education Officer Sadhna Sayam; Medical Health Officer Dr Dipak Selokar; Zonal Medical Officer Dr Atiq Khan, and others.
Goyal reviewed the status of the complaints received by NMC from September 2024 till January 15, 2025 and also about the functioning of RTS. Despite self-boasting by NMC, citizens are far from satisfied with the complaint redressal system. Some of the complainants said their complaints though registered but nothing has been done for its mitigation, especially relating to potholes and the ground situation remains unchanged.
Further, the official NMC app launched during the tenure of then Municipal Commissioner Tukaram Mundhe, Nagpur Live City App, seems to have been dumped by the civic officials. The system that time citizens recalled worked quite promptly. Since at time of uploading of photos it was tagged through GPS enabling faster response from NMC. After Mundhe’s exit, the App was rendered obsolete as NMC officials introduced new measures but they are far from satisfactory.
