The officers from Municipal Corporation of Dehradun (MCD) claimed that the Swachh Dehradun mobile application, meant to resolve the cleanliness complaints of the residents, has been working smoothly and effectively. However, the reality is that a majority of the people living in the city are unaware of the application. The rating of and comments on the application highlight that the application acts very slowly and MCD hardly does anything to resolve the complaints uploaded by the people on the application.
As per the information received from the sources, MCD launched a mobile application -‘Nagar Nigam Dehradun- Official’ around two years ago. The cost of preparing the application was Rs 80,000, but after a very short period of time, it became dysfunctional. The application was meant to facilitate the local residents to upload a photo with the location of the area which needed to be cleaned. The complaint was further transferred to the sanitary inspector of the ward concerned and action was meant to be taken to resolve the complaint. However, the application endured for a very short span of time.
In the same year, ‘ Swachh Dehradun’ (application on the Central scheme Swachh Survekshan) was launched. The civic body officers say that it is working very effectively in the city. However, the people say the opposite. According to them, the application has been going very slowly. “Besides, most of the people living in the civic body limit are unaware of the existence of such an app,” said a resident.
Queried over the disappearance of the earlier application launched by MCD and the performance of the Swachh Dehradun application, the officer in -charge said, “We closed the earlier MCD application as it kept creating confusion among the people because of the presence of two similar kind of apps. Now there is just Swachh Dehradun left and it is functioning effectively to the satisfaction of the people. All the complaints lodged on it are directly transferred to our sanitation officers and they, in their turn, get them resolved.
To raise awareness on the app, we conduct campaigns through which the people, particularly the college students, are given information about the application so as to help them to take an active role in the cleanliness of the city. We have received around 147 complaints through this application in January alone.”