Hyderabad: Civic body grievance cell closes cases, woes remain

Hyderabad: The Centralised Grievance Redressal System (CGRS) of the Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation has been severely criticised by citizens who have used it.

Grievances have been registered through MYGHMC App, prajavani, GHMC call centres and several other social media platforms. Citizens claim that the complaints are closed without being attended to.

Sources claim that the CGRS has been set up only so that the GHMC gets good marks in the Swachh Survekshan rankings. They said the ranking only notes the number of grievances closed, without bothering to check whether they have been attended to on the ground.

The corporation had tried to introduce a double-checking mechanism to ensure that the grievances had been attended to, but that too has failed to impress citizens.

Besides this, civic body has also instructed GHMC officials to collect evidence such as photographs from the spots (in cases like road damage, sanitation works) after resolving the complaint, and sending this to the complainant.

The GHMC’s CGRS wing will call the complainant on his/her mobile to make sure that the complaint has been resolved. However, highly-placed sources claim that all this double checking has been tampered with by lower rung officials.

Official sources said, out of 1,000 grievances, 400 that claimed to have been redressed were not when checked on the ground.

In order to make civic officials accountable, the name and mobile number of the official who would address the issue is to be given to the complainant. Besides, a third party verification has to be done to ensure the grievance has been addressed. All this remains on paper and officers in the corporation show that issues have been addressed and the matter closed in order to impress their bosses.

A senior GHMC official admitted that citizens are getting irritated by the attitude of officials who close grievance cases without addressing the complaint.

He said that about 60 per cent of complaints pertained to unauthorised construction. In such cases, the civic body has to give three notices in one month to initiate action. He said officials close the complaint immediately after issuing the first notice, which has justifiably annoyed citizens.

The official also said that complaints about the mosquito menace, stray dog menace and sanitation have been recurring but he chose to blame the behaviour of residents.

“Even after addressing the grievances they will be reopened immediately. Then, issues like repairing roads, streetlights and infrastructure works have been outsourced but the corporation has been taking the brunt,” he said.

The grievance redressal system cannot be streamlined without interdepartmental co-ordination and public support, he said.