Councillors, officers on WhatsApp to fix civic plaints in Sirsa

Anil Kakkar

Sirsa, June 10

To address potable water and sewerage problems in urban areas, the Public Health and Engineering Department is now using WhatsApp to resolve local citizens’ complaints.

The department has created a WhatsApp group to try and resolve people’s problems. The group includes current and former municipal councillors from urban areas. These municipal councillors will post complaints from urban area colonies in the group and the department officials concerned will resolve them on-site.

The Superintending Engineer of the Public Health Department, Jaswant Singh, held a meeting with the department’s Executive Engineers (XENs), Subdivisional Officers (SDOs), and Junior Engineers (JEs) to instruct them to resolve any sewerage and drinking water complaints as quickly as possible.

At the meeting, he told the SDOs and JEs to immediately address any complaints related to sewerage and drinking water. Negligence will result in action against the officer concerned. He instructed that a WhatsApp group be created for resolving complaints, which includes current and former MCs, and all officers and employees should also be included. Any complaint made by the MC should be responded to immediately and resolved. Often, ignoring the complaints caused distress to people.

The group will include all SDOs, JEs, and field employees. After receiving a complaint from the colonies, the area officer concerned will have to provide an update and mark the complaint as resolved once it is addressed. The time of receiving and resolving the complaint will also be recorded. If there is any delay in resolving a complaint, the reason for the delay will be provided.

SE Jaswant Singh appealed to the district residents not to leave taps open or waste water. He also urged people not to dispose of dung, bottles or plastic bags in manholes to prevent clogging of sewer lines, which could cause inconvenience to the people.