Civic Services Get FB Push : Dr Roshan Jacob

Kanpur city administration is successfully using social media platform as a public interface to address people’s complaints relating to civic amenities, explains Dr Roshan Jacob, District Magistrate, Kanpur.

MyCity is a Government to Citizen (G2C) project that tries to use social media platform like Facebook to address the grievances of the average urban citizen in the city of Kanpur. Although now-a-days governments spend a lot of money towards improvement of civic amenities in cities, there is no public interface available to citizens to report any inconvenience caused to them or provide constructive feedback about those amenities with an appropriate reply-back mechanism.

Many a time, a complainant has to unnecessarily roam around departments to get small problems like uncollected garbage, a dug-up road, a broken power line or a choked sewer resolved. As the solutions to his problems require coordinated response from multiple departments, the citizen gets stuck in the system gaps.

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Under MyCity, six major segments have been identified, viz. sanitation and garbage disposal, electricity, streetlights, water supply and sewerage, and traffic and roads, where for every sector a designated nodal officer responds from the concerned department’s Facebook ID to the queries posed by the citizens of his area.

The citizen can post his complaint or suggestion on any of the sectors’ specific pages, along with supporting photographs, under MyCity page, URL for which is www. facebook.com/mycitykanpur.up. It is the nodal officer’s responsibility to respond on Facebook and ensure timely redressal of the complaint. The district administration acts as a moderator and takes note of issues which are not resolved within the given time period. Thus, the system helps in identifying/resolving the real time needs of the people.

People have to roam around government departments to get even small problems resolved. As solutions need coordinated response from multiple departments, they get stuck in the system gaps

Apart from grievance redressal, MyCity also carries an updated database of around 300 ongoing water supply and sewer works under the JNNURM, along with onsite photographs. The data is updated weekly by a junior engineer. A local resident can any time contest the department’s update on the Facebook page with his own version through a true picture of the work happening in his locality. This enables a participatory project evaluation.

In Kanpur, MyCity has become a live connect between the public, government agencies and the district administration. It allows real time public auditing of works under execution and ensures public participation in town planning. That way, the concept works in the true spirit of Mera Shahar Mere Dekh Rekh Mein! (My City Under my supervision!).