Chat about your complaints, the Collector is listening

Chat about your complaints, the Collector is listening
ABHIJIT SATHE

NAGPUR, FEB 21: Pivotal government departments in Nagpur have been bitten by the cyber bug. Now you just have to log on to government website and address your problems through an online chat with the babus, obviating the need for a visit to the collectorate.

Spurred by cyber-savvy Collector Manu Kumar Shrivastav, the collectorate plans to hold regular online chat sessions between officials of various State Government departments and web-surfers.

This is soon going to be a part of the much-touted 'Lok Shahi Diwas', held on the first Monday of every month. The first official chat session is slotted for March 6.

During Lok Shahi Diwas, heads of various government departments like Health, MSEB, NMC, NIT, PWD and others, assemble at the collector's office to redress grievances of the citizens. By lending this exercise a cyber touch, these officials would be available online for a particular period during that day.

Shrivastav explained the move saying "chat programmes will bring about interaction between officials and the info-tech conscious strata of the society, which otherwise shirks to air its grievances."

The sessions are expected to throw up a plethora of complaints regarding the functioning of service sector departments like MSEB, NMC and others. Shrivastav did not rule out the possibility of telecom department being added to this list.Ø Redressal of complaints and action taken will thereupon be conveyed at the earliest to the concerned e-mail IDs.Ø The thumping response such chat sessions is likely to generate was evident when Shrivastava went online to hear problems and queries of surfers on Saturday afternoon. The maiden session, organised by a private agency Orangecitynagpur, drew no less than 100 queries in three hours.

The agency had culled ten Internet cafes in the city from where surfers could shoot in their questions to the Collector.

The question covered an entire gamut. Right from sleaze to Shrivastav's penchant for computerisation, and even some tongue-in-cheek personal ones.Ø Shrivastav said "a large number of questions were related to corruption in the RTO office." He said "Since majority of the surfers are young, their first encounter with corruption comes from the RTO, when they go to get a driving licence."

Some participants were apprehensive of the large-scale computerisation mounted by the government, and whether babus were trained enough to handle the mouse. Questions about low industrialisation of the region and the shifting of industries from the region were also put to the Collector. Encouraged by the response, Shrivastav is likely to hold one more such interactive programme next week.