If good governance depends on ability to take responsibility by administration as well as by people then Jharkhand certainly seems to be heading towards the goal by riding on the popularity of social media applications and show how small things can be used for greater ends by bridging the gap between the two stakeholders in governance.
As a ray of sunshine is falling straight on the city situated on the Tropic of Cancer and strain infrastructures setup for providing underground water to the people of Ranchi, the Urban Development department acted just on time to facilitate flow of communication through WhatsApp (on number 9431386595)-an Android-based application-to address complaints of faulty hand-pumps in municipal areas. The menial complaints have reaching effect considering dependence on underground water in the absence of a proper water supply system. The number became active for the service from Monday.
"This is the most effective tool and we are getting a lot of pictures of faulty hand-pumps. Since people are more familiar with WhatsApp compared to Facebook , the move will definitely help in achieving good governance," Urban Development Secretary AK Singh said.
The WhatsApp number for hand-pump complaint redressal has been made accessible to all the residents of all urban-local-bodies (UlB) across Jharkhand. Besides a Facebook page and a dedicated email have been floated to bring such problems to the notice of the department.
The mechanism, however, is the secondary level of complaint registration which means that a complaint should be registered with complete details if a grievance registered at the primary level is not addressed within the stipulated time for rectifying problems.
"This is basically a method of escalating the monitoring system and whatever complaints received are forwarded to respective UlBs with complete details. We have also decided to follow up complaints through video conferencing on every Tuesday," said an official involved with capacity building of UlBs, adding that scale of use of such applications prompted the decision and it will also convey a message to UlBs that they are under surveillance from the department's end.
According to sources, everyday around 50 complaints are sent on WhatsApp since the launch. However, most of them are sent by rural inhabitants. The Facebook page guides people about key persons to approach and provides complaint registration number for a particular area. The ubiquitous applications and platforms are being used on a pilot basis and more such initiatives are likely to be rolled out if encouraging results are observed.
"If we succeed with these new and innovative ideas, then we may extend it to other services as well," maintained Singh.