Pallavaram has toll free no. for plaints, but no feedback

Pallavaram has toll free no. for plaints, but no feedback

Siddharth.Prabhakar@timesgroup.com

Chennai:03.02.2021

Residents of areas under Pallavaram municipality have been given a toll free number they can call to complain about civic problems but they have no idea if anyone is taking action.

Official data shows that the municipality on the city’s southern fringes on GST Road, which comprises 80,000 households, outsourced operation of toll free number 18004251600 to a private firm, which acts as the consultant.

There are five public grievance operators and one supervisor in charge of ensuring complaints are taken from residents 24x7 in a system to maintain which the municipality pays ₹15 lakh annually.

Around 700 complaints are registered every month on the helpline but there is no feedback mechanism.

Social activist David Manohar on January 27 raised a complaint about aggressive stray dogs on Pillaiyar Koil Street. “I have no idea whether the issue has been resolved or not. When we call the number, they ask us to contact the municipality official,” he said.

A call to the number showed the process was exactly as Manohar said. The call centre executive gave the contact number of the sanitary inspector saying he would respond.

Pallavaram municipality commissioner C Mathivanan told TOI resolution of complaints depended on the issue.

“We got 248 complaints regarding street lights in January. A majority were regarding cables and were resolved within 48 hours,” he said.

However, complaints about water supply or a block in the main sewage line are more complex and could take up to 15 days to resolve, Mathivanan said.

The civic body was also in the process of collecting contact numbers of all households and linking them to their property tax numbers, so that they could be intimated when such issues were notified through the helpline, the commissioner added.