Kolkata Municipal Corporation (KMC) will soon launch a system for Kolkatans to rate the services provided by the civic body after a citizen lodges a complaint through the WhatsApp chatbot of the KMC or the weekly phone-in programme Talk to Mayor.
The services can be rated on a scale of 1 to 5.
If anyone rates the KMC’s service in response to a complaint 2 or less, the complaint will be reopened.
“A rating of 2 or less means the complainant is not happy with the services and there is a need for the civic body to look into the complaint once more,” said a KMC official.
About 18 calls are received on an average in every session of Talk to Mayor, an hour-long weekly programme during which Kolkatans get a chance to talk to mayor Firhad Hakim about their grievances related to civic services.
The KMC also has a WhatsApp chatbot service on the phone number 8335999111.
A resident of the Kolkata municipal area can share any grievance or lodge a complaint regarding any civic service on chatbot number. The KMC calls the service ‘Show to Mayor’.
“Whenever a complaint is received, it is registered in our internal online system. When the department thinks they have resolved the complaint, they mention it in the internal system. At present, the KMC only sends a text message to the complainant saying the complaint has been resolved, but there is no scope for the people to give their feedback,” said the official.
The change, the official said, will come in here. “We will now offer complainants the opportunity to rate our response to a complaint. Whenever the department concerned tells our internal system that the complaint has been resolved, a WhatsApp message will go to the complainant asking for feedback/rating. There will also be a box for remarks where the complainant can comment on our service,” said the official.
“If someone rates our service 2 or less, we will reopen the complaint,” the official said.
The KMC is now doing a trial run of the service, which will be officially launched in a week.
“Through this service of allowing citizens to rate us we want to make the civic body more accountable to the people,” said a senior official.
According to the official, the feedback will give the civic body an idea of the services that people are satisfied with and the ones they are unhappy about.
“If we find that there are one or two services about which we are receiving a poor rating, we have to think of ways to improve the services. We may even talk to the complainants about what more they expect,” the senior official said.