GOVERNMENT
OF INDIA
A Digital India Initiative
GOVERNMENT
OF INDIA
Background:
The New Town city authorities felt the need of an integrated 24×7 system to engage with the citizens for all their queries, complaints and grievances related to civic services and to disseminate information on different services and facilities. So, from July 2019 the 24×7 helpline with the Integrated Grievance Management System is running in New Town
Objectives:
1. To listen to the grievance of the citizens 24×7 and handle towards solution
2. To act as a bridge between the citizens and the civic functionaries
3. To act as a guidance centre for online and offline services of the New Town Kolkata Development Authority (NKDA)
4. To serve the citizens with on demand services (e,g. ambulance, safe home, food delivery, medicine delivery, vaccination assistance, sanitization services )
5. To disseminate information on the town and various civic, essential and entertainment amenities
Solution Components:
A toll-free number is attended (1800 103 7652) round the clock by a team of trained professional tele callers in a call centre. To ensure complete coverage 24×7 a team of voice callers have been engaged. Citizens can call anytime to get their queries attended. A large set of Frequently Asked Questions with their responses is kept in the call centre and citizens get their queries addressed from these. The callers are also trained in the working of different processes and online services so that they can guide the enquirers through the different citizen centric services like mutation, payment of property tax, registration of birth and death. Apart from these, the call centre executives are equipped with the knowledge of different amusement and recreational facilities provided by NKDA and WBHIDCO Limited.
This helpline serves as the grievance registration point for the citizen also. Any citizen can register her grievance/complain at any point of time just by calling the toll-free number. The Integrated Grievance Management System (IGMS) immediately generates a Complaint Docket No., and the issue is forwarded to the officer concerned through e mail, SMS and online IGMS. There are preset timelines for resolution of the complaints and escalations to senior management happens through the system itself. On resolution of the complaint, the complainant is called, and the feedback is collected. Based on the feedback ranking a general ranking of the department concerned is created, the grievance issue is finally closed in the system only if the citizens are satisfied.
Analysis and Results:
Between Jan 2021 to Dec 2021, a total of 53,827 calls have been received by the system out of which 47,413 were enquiries and information related calls while 6,414 were grievance or service request calls.
On analysis of the data, it was found that there was time lag in addressing different grievances beyond acceptable tolerance limit of management. Hence, it was decided that on assignment of a grievance to the section concerned, the agency concerned will also be intimated. This reduced the time lag between complaint and redressal and higher level of citizen satisfaction was obtained. In the online ranking feedback received from the citizens the overall average ranking received so far is 4.54 on a 5-point scale.
The complaint on mosquito menace was very high at 52 in January 2021. The data was analyzed and localities identified from where maximum complaints were coming. Vector control department carried on intensive spraying, fogging and IEC initiatives in these selected zones. As a result, with minor seasonal aberrations, the complaint on mosquito menace came down drastically to 12 in December 2021. The data of the complains are analyzed to find out locations or localities where the grievance on a particular service is concentrated. On the basis of that special efforts are taken to concentrate services like vector control initiatives and waste cleaning in particular zones of the town.
Further, road repair is an important area in any modern town. To reduce grievances on this aspect, the particular stretches of road with repeated complaints were taken under special maintenance and to ensure quality of repair, the helpline was authorized to allow a time schedule of maintenance in consultation with engineers. The result was an astounding drop from 13 to nil complaints over the year.
Attracting and efficiently handling external queries is of immense importance to a growing city like New Town which needs to attract business and residence from outside to attain its desired growth. Since its introduction, the system has handled 4,093 enquiries about the town from outside its territory till 31st December 2021. This shows that the helpline is successful as a single point of information for New Town.
During the covid times, the helpline has become popular for accessing sanitization service, cremation service, oxygen at doorstep, access to safe home, vaccination scheduling and even availing food delivery in lock down.