Mayor Firhad Hakim will visit some of the places from where complaints are received during the Talk to Mayor programme to check if the grievances have been addressed.

Hakim said on Saturday that he would choose the places randomly and visit without alerting anyone in the Calcutta Municipal Corporation (CMC). The decision was triggered by a complaint from a caller alleging that no civic official had visited him even after a call to the mayor’s helpline.

“I will personally visit the places to see if any action has been taken on the complaints. I will visit one place chosen randomly from every 10 complaints, ” he said. “I will not alert anyone about my visits.”

Hakim has already visited a couple of places — a neighbourhood in Bhowanipore where garbage hadn’t been cleared and another in Behala where there had been a complaint regarding a pond.

The corporation has started updating all complainants about action taken on their grievances, a CMC official said.

The caller whose complaint triggered Hakim’s decision has not heard of any action, though.

When an official said “the action was under process”, a visibly angry Hakim asked: “How long will it be under process? What will people think if it takes three months for work to be done even after telling the mayor?”

Hakim instructed officials to ensure that someone not below the rank of a deputy chief engineer address the complaints made to him. “We have to secure people’s confidence in us. The engineer must visit the complainant and assure him/her that the corporation would address the complaint,” he said.