Palike lets user-friendly complaints system decay

No effort by BBMP to create awareness about it among public, officials

The BBMP’s inability to make the best use of its resources has come to the fore again. The Palike has failed to make the most of its virtual world resource - the GPMS Online Complaint Monitoring System. 

Through this system, the public can post complaints online. However, due to lack of co-ordination among Palike engineers and poor awareness among the public, the system remains underutilised. 

The application was developed by the Indian Centre for Social Transformation (ICST), a public charitable trust, in 2009. “It was the first-of-its kind initiative in the country. The public could log on and post complaints about any issue affecting their locality by attaching supporting documents, images, audios and signature. It was designed in such a way that the user could view his/her complaint and its status later on,” Raja Seevan, founder trustee of ICST, told Deccan Herald. The complaints are sent to the administrator of the portal, who then forwards them to the Corporator concerned, he said.

The system, on Palike’s website, shows a total of 2,133 complaints that have been lodged by the public till date. However, the status of most of the complaints has remained ‘unresolved,’ leaving people sceptical about the worthiness of the system. Seevan holds both the public and the Palike responsible for the state of affairs. 

“The people whose complaints have been solved as well as the Palike officials fail to update the status on the website. Also, the Palike officers are supposed to direct the ward engineers to take suitable action in regard to the complaints lodged by the public. But, this is not being done efficiently. The BBMP’s registered contractors too can update the details of the projects online, but are not doing so.”

The complaints mainly pertain to dog menace, lack of streetlights, delay in receiving voter identity cards, illegal constructions, bad roads and others. While 754 complaints have been lodged in the first four months this year, a total of 1,244 complaints were lodged in 2009. The ICST had trained 3,500 Palike engineers and about 450 officers across 198 wards in using the system initially. The GPMS currently has details of over 92,000 Palike projects. 

The GPMS also has a facility through which the public can access information related to ward-wise projects, cost estimates and other aspects.Jagadish, a Palike engineer from HBR Layout (ward number 24), said that he was not aware of the online complaints system. 

BBMP Commissioner 

M Lakshminarayana said that steps would be taken to create awareness among the Palike officials and the public on using the system.