Ministry of Urban Development to launch ‘Swachh City Solutions’ app
New Delhi, India, February 04, 2016: The Ministry of Urban Development today announced its partnership with Janaagraha Centre for Citizenship and Democracy, to build and implement mobile and web based applications targeted at citizens, engineers and the municipal bodies. The proposed application, called the ‘Swachh City Solutions’, is being developed to ensure timely and effective implementation of the Swachh Bharat Mission (Urban) objectives in 4041 statutory towns in India, by providing the citizens a mechanism to post complaints and allowing municipalities to address citizen grievances. A Memorandum of Understanding to the effect has been signed today between the Ministry of Urban Development and Janaagraha.
The application is likely to go live by April 2016 and will give citizens the access to the latest technology to complain and allow them to actively participate and contribute towards maintaining their city’s cleanliness. Citizens will have features that will allow them to view complaints posted nearby, and show support by ‘Voting up’ on various complaints. The app, in addition to enabling the creation of a community around complaints, leading to community participation and faster complaint resolution, will also enable the Ministry of Urban Development to rate & rank the 4041 urban local bodies (ULBs) in India, based on their efficiency of redressing citizen grievances.
Speaking on the occasion, Shri Praveen Prakash, Joint Secretary, Ministry of Urban Development & Mission Director – Swachh Bharat Mission said, “Through this app, the government is providing the citizens with a platform to express their concerns regarding their areas and build community participation and consensus towards maintaining the cleanliness in their cities. The app will also enable municipal officials/field engineers to see each complaint and update the status of the resolution along with photos, hence building accountability in the system by ensuring timely grievance redressal.”
The application aims to propel the vision of Swachh Bharat Mission towards a clean and garbage free India by 2019. Janaagraha will also develop a citizens‘ dashboard for MoUD, Municipal Commissioners/officials & citizens to review the progress on complaints resolution, the analysis of the complaints and the city-wise rankings of cleanliness. There would be different categories under which citizens could lodge their complaints, along with optimal redressal time assigned to each category. Users would also be empowered to give their feedback on the resolution of the complaint, which also will be used as one of the parameters by the MoUD to develop city rankings and ratings.
Expressing her delight over the announcement, Sylvia Veeraraghavan, Co-ordinator-Jana Online, Janaagraha added “It is a great honour and privilege to be chosen by the MoUD to provide this service to the nation. The initiative will enable all citizens to participate in realizing the dream of a Swachh Bharat. This initiative helps us use technology to solve pressing civic issues, thereby making our cities and neighborhoods cleaner and safer. We are hoping that under the tutelage of MoUD, the resolution of complaints will be higher. This will help us take a big step towards a cleaner India.”
Janaagraha has ample experience in creating citizen-facing mobile applications aimed at civic grievance redressal, having already developed apps like IChangeMyCity. The IChangeMyCity website and mobile app was launched by Janaagraha to encourage citizens to post complaints related to civic grievances, and the application attracted over 2 lakh registered active users in Bengaluru alone.
