Facing criticism, GHMC claims credit through backdoor

HYDERABAD: Facing a flood of criticism with the monsoon rains inundating many parts of the city, the GHMC has chosen to point out that it has redressed more than 39,600 grievances within a span of 60 days. The implication is that it has been hard at work.

An report issued by the GHMC claimed that it has closed 39,687 “issues” from the beginning of May to the end of June. According to the report, while 26,911 grievances have been settled, 12,007 are pending, 2,819 re-opened and 1,201 are under process.

Contrary to these claims, official sources within the corporation disclosed that, on an average, of 1,000 grievances received by them 800 are closed as resolved without attending to the issue. When there were complaints about this approach, the civic body had conducted a double check in March 2019 and issued notices to 200 officials for closing issues without attending to them.

Citizens have also suffered after GHMC stopped holding its ‘Prajavani’ programme on Mondays from 10 am to 1 pm where they could question officials over their problems not being solved despite repeated complaints. Officials stopped this programme under the pretext of Coronavirus pandemic. Those with grievances have thus lost an opportunity to question officials in real time and get their problems resolved.

“We are from Apurupa Jagapathi Heights with 240 flats in Uppal and facing the menace of mosquitoes. We raised tickets 1307211428138, 1307211428272 and 1307211428367 through MYGHMC App for fogging. But authorities have not turned up yet,” said a flat owner, Shankar. Multiple complaints have been raised by other flat owners too, but nothing has happened so far.

"I raised a complaint on mosquito menace with ID 1207211426464 five days ago on MYGHMC App. No action has been taken. What should we expect from GHMC,” said Syed Anser of Tolichowki.

When queried about the subject, a senior GHMC official, on condition of anonymity, said officials are in a hurry to clear grievances to be in the good books of their department heads. That is why they resort to false claims of having resolved the problem. The official, however, conceded that no issue within the corporation can be resolved if field-level staff are not sincere.

The official said to overcome repeated complaints against civic body staff about fake claims of having attended to an issue, authorities have now decided to tag the complainant along with the complaint to double check whether an issue has been resolved. Those resolving the issue have been asked to produce evidence, for example, taking the photograph of a pothole having been filled. The same would be sent to the complainant.

"In addition, GHMC’s Centralised Grievance Redressal System will call citizens on their mobile numbers to make sure that the complaint has been resolved," the official stated.

However, this mechanism too seems to be failing due to lack of monitoring by higher officials.