The Madhya Pradesh Government’s initiative in successfully addressing complaints about defunct hand pumps through SMS service across the State has caught the attention of the Centre.
The Union Ministry of Water and Sanitation recently shot off letters to the States suggesting them to replicate the ‘Interactive Voice Response System’ (IVRS)’ introduced in Madhya Pradesh that interacts with callers, gathers information and routes calls to the appropriate recipient system regarding complaints about the non-functional hand pumps.
Under the electronic system, the villagers no longer have to come to offices for registering the complaints regarding hand pumps that are out of order but just have to SMS it on a given number. The system has particularly helped in ensuring water supply to rural population during summers. There are over 5.28 lakh hand pumps in Madhya Pradesh.
Giving thumbs up to the unique electronic concept in the State, Satyabrata Sahu, Joint Secretary in Water and Sanitation Ministry said, “recently, I have visited a few villages in Indore Division of Madhya Pradesh and personally verified the same. This system is running satisfactorily and most of the complaints are attended to within a maximum period of three days.”
Underlining that the system was urgently required in the States where water supply was predominantly provided through hand pumps, he said, the NIC can be approached to develop the same system.
The Union Ministry has offered funds from NRDWP scheme.
Elaborating about the need for the system, a senior official from the MP Government said that “many times in the absence of the telephone number of the concerned officials, villagers had to face a lot of problems to make the hand pumps working. Moreover, the process of lodging complaints in the office was time consuming and required physical appearance.
Also, sometimes due to wrong information provided by the complainant, departmental staff were getting confused regarding the real problem and location of Hand pumps.”
To overcome this problem, it was felt that identity of each hand pump was necessary.
After detailed survey and enquiry from the software professionals, GIS mapping of each hand pump was undertaken for which tablet PCs were purchased and a software was developed with the help of National Informatics Centre (NIC). A unique identity number in ten digits has been given for each hand pump.
After GIS mapping and generation of unique ID of each Hand pump in the entire State, a GSM sim bearing number 9200067890 has been integrated with the software.”
The software has been further modified wherein a complainant makes a call on the number and after entering the ID of the hand pump, the software registers the complaint and sends information to the concerned mechanic of official staff, specifying the exact location of the hand pump and type of problem within few seconds, the official said.
The hand pump is repaired by the departmental officials within three days. After repair, the complainant is also intimated about the complaint resolution, added the official.