www.praja.org
Check the governors
Here's an initiative that helps us come to terms with cantankerous babus. It helps one track complaints against civic authorities online. Initiated in 2003 by the Mumbai-based voluntary organisation Praja, the website was initially meant for the Mumbai only. Now the endeavour has been extended for citizens of Bangalore as well. Called the Online Complaint Management system,the project claims to be the first of its kind in the world.
Each complaint has a unique tracking number called ctn. The complainer can 24x7 check the status of the complaint online. If the complaint is not heeded, it will be escalated to the higher officer automatically -- and so up to the highest level.
The site also has a citizen's charter, published in association with the Municipal Corporation of Greater Mumbai (MCGM). It aims to "provide the citizens of Mumbai important information about the various departments and public utility services of the MCGM in a user-friendly manner". We are told that more than a lakh complaints have been registered at the site till date.
But the site could have done well to tell us about the exact numbers of complaints that have been actually solved. Moreover, we also long for some accounts of those have actually accessed www.praja.org. But we also wish that there are similar initiatives for the rest of the country.
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