Stringent deadlines create conflict among officers, some even cook up fake complaints
With an aim to win brownie points an get the maximum number of complaints cleared, senior officials of the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) have been forcing their juniors to follow stringent deadlines. This has led to a conflict between the officials who have been given a target of tackling at least 50 complaints a day in addition to their regular work. With no increase in their manpower and the lack of proper infrastructure, the juniors have begun complaining against their seniors. While a few others, in a bid to win brownie points, have started creating their own list of complaints and fulfilling them to show work is being done as prescribed.
An app which was meant to keep the city clean has actually turned out to be a nightmare for the BMC officials. The 'Swachhta App' was launched by the Central government's Urban Development (UD) ministry for addressing complaints related to civic issues. The app empowers citizens who can click pictures and mark the location after which the compliant will be forwarded to the concerned municipal authority. The app pinpoints the exact location of the complaint using geolocation (real world geographic location). As far as Mumbai is concerned, all complaints will be directed to the concerned ward office and the Solid Waste Management (SWM) assistant engineer has to look into it. It does not stop here as the complainant will also get a live feedback from the concerned authority as their complaint is is taken care of.
This may all seem easy and convenient on paper. However, the officials who work on ground are facing the brunt for meeting stringent deadlines and have complaining about the lack of personal time. In case of the BMC, the officials have been asked to resolve at least 50 complaints daily. This is also to ensure that the city can rise up in the upcoming 'Swachh Bharat' survey. An official, on the condition of anonymity said, “We receive feedback on the number of complaints resolved and those wards that have not performed get a bad remark. This activity has been eating into our family time. We get messages on Sundays and also after office hours at mid night, and in case we are late to receive them or the issues we get a back remark. In case we complain about the same to our seniors there is no one to give a proper answer. With no increase in infrastructure or manpower, the government has given us this extra responsibility. Even though we are ready to respond to complaints, in this case we have to give a follow up too.”
While in some wards there are too many complaints to address, there are other that have almost none. Another officer from a different ward said, “In many wards there are quite a few citizens who are unaware of this app and no one has the time or inclination to upload an image and complain about the same. However, in a bid to fulfil our deadlines, we are often forced to put up fake complaints and then resolve them and upload the follow up image.”
According to an internal daily analysis of the complaints of December 17-18, the poor performance wards and their total resolved complaints are – M West (18), L (60), D (96), H East (94), P South (89), R South (99), R Central (83) and T (81). While the top performing wards are – K West (342) and C (308). However, the following day (December 19-20), the complaints in these wards rose and in some cases, rose drastically, with M West recording 35 complaints, L (91), D (92), H East (95), P South (165), R South (191), R Central (117) and T (114). The most performing wards were K West (563) and H West 296.
During the last 'Swachh Bharat' ranking, Mumbai’s position dropped from 10 to 29. The assistant commissioners and assistant engineers are complaining that this app is taking a heavy toll on their personal life and so the BMC must increase man and machinery required for the task. According to the civic body, till date, 50 thousand people have downloaded the app and about 27,000 complaints have been resolved in total.