For the last 4 four weeks, we are facing water shortage issue in our building and probably in the whole area. Before i was aware of the global nature of this problem, i was only complaining about it at home. Well, sometimes casually discussing with neighbors along with other minor problems like increasing prices for vegetables and upcoming elections. After few such incidental talks, I learned the bigger problem underneath; it was getting few people from my building together and filing a complaint in BMC. But for now let me focus on the water problem.
Being in to IT I had one inherent advantage of the profession “to underestimate the complexity of the problem”. Besides that I often wish problems to get solved by themselves or at the most I wish them to disappear to the press of a button. And i came up with the brilliant idea in no time, to “file in the online complaint” while other busy in blaming each other for not coming together for writing a complaint. After few minutes of self glorification i went on to www.mcgm.gov.in.
A not very bad looking website with images of bmc office, vidhan bhavan, gate way and queens necklace animating at the top appeared surprisingly quicker. I immediately clicked on the “Complaint” Menu in the top bar, 3rd from the left and after the menu of “Citizen services”. This brings up the page with 3 different options to file a complaint; one is online, 2nd is going to nearest Facilitation center (which I couldn’t find anywhere on the site) and 3rd is dialing a “praja line” 1916 (I am super impressed with this term).
I decided to go ahead with online application; may be because I went quite some length of self admiration over my idea of using internet to crack on two problems at one go, water and unanimity shortage.
So here you see a clear blue link saying “complaint registration form”. Click and appears a long complaint form and I could already hear water coming out of the tap. There are total of 22 complaint types (23rd is miscellaneous) each having 7 to 10 subtypes, BMC handling 220 different types of problems, though this looks virtual at this moment, it takes heart and brain of a IT professional to believe it.
The next step is to provide the description of the complaint. Here is the place I wanted to spend most of the time to elaborate my pain in a vocabulary effective enough to sensitize a government officer at the other end of the word wide web. But I must admire the web designer who designed this complaint form allowing only 150 characters to the description; the limit which just makes sure that complaint doesn’t carry any emotions at all, i wasn’t too happy here. In couple of attempts to convey my feelings, I ended up with description full of words that won’t be allowed by any profanity filter. In the end I settled with a milder description as given below.
“We at Raj Towers are facing shortage of water supply since last one month. We are barely getting water for 5 to 10 mins every day, which is enough only for drinking. Please kindly look into it”
As you see I have decided to act very polite, which means that you are “super angry”; I hope the bmc officers know about this genre of politeness.
Rest of the form is about the location of the complaint, name and of the complainant. Nearly 3/4th of the form is asking complainant information. I can see a first time user might never finish the complaint form suspecting the heavy policing; but it is probably not made for first time web users. Anyways I am ready to file in the complaint after previewing the details. I hit the submit button and after 9-10 seconds of anxious wait it throws me a connection time out page. Well I am use to this also so I tried again and again and again and finally decided to try next day. It is still better then arranging the impossible meeting of people from my building.
At this point I was satisfied with myself for making a “not so common” attempt to solve one of the “very common” problems and the phone rang. I explained my heroic attempt to my wife and she said “It is of no use, you have to go there; spend a day and then they might do something”.
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Tell a friend
Bury
Being in to IT I had one inherent advantage of the profession “to underestimate the complexity of the problem”. Besides that I often wish problems to get solved by themselves or at the most I wish them to disappear to the press of a button. And i came up with the brilliant idea in no time, to “file in the online complaint” while other busy in blaming each other for not coming together for writing a complaint. After few minutes of self glorification i went on to www.mcgm.gov.in.
A not very bad looking website with images of bmc office, vidhan bhavan, gate way and queens necklace animating at the top appeared surprisingly quicker. I immediately clicked on the “Complaint” Menu in the top bar, 3rd from the left and after the menu of “Citizen services”. This brings up the page with 3 different options to file a complaint; one is online, 2nd is going to nearest Facilitation center (which I couldn’t find anywhere on the site) and 3rd is dialing a “praja line” 1916 (I am super impressed with this term).
I decided to go ahead with online application; may be because I went quite some length of self admiration over my idea of using internet to crack on two problems at one go, water and unanimity shortage.
So here you see a clear blue link saying “complaint registration form”. Click and appears a long complaint form and I could already hear water coming out of the tap. There are total of 22 complaint types (23rd is miscellaneous) each having 7 to 10 subtypes, BMC handling 220 different types of problems, though this looks virtual at this moment, it takes heart and brain of a IT professional to believe it.
The next step is to provide the description of the complaint. Here is the place I wanted to spend most of the time to elaborate my pain in a vocabulary effective enough to sensitize a government officer at the other end of the word wide web. But I must admire the web designer who designed this complaint form allowing only 150 characters to the description; the limit which just makes sure that complaint doesn’t carry any emotions at all, i wasn’t too happy here. In couple of attempts to convey my feelings, I ended up with description full of words that won’t be allowed by any profanity filter. In the end I settled with a milder description as given below.
“We at Raj Towers are facing shortage of water supply since last one month. We are barely getting water for 5 to 10 mins every day, which is enough only for drinking. Please kindly look into it”
As you see I have decided to act very polite, which means that you are “super angry”; I hope the bmc officers know about this genre of politeness.
Rest of the form is about the location of the complaint, name and of the complainant. Nearly 3/4th of the form is asking complainant information. I can see a first time user might never finish the complaint form suspecting the heavy policing; but it is probably not made for first time web users. Anyways I am ready to file in the complaint after previewing the details. I hit the submit button and after 9-10 seconds of anxious wait it throws me a connection time out page. Well I am use to this also so I tried again and again and again and finally decided to try next day. It is still better then arranging the impossible meeting of people from my building.
At this point I was satisfied with myself for making a “not so common” attempt to solve one of the “very common” problems and the phone rang. I explained my heroic attempt to my wife and she said “It is of no use, you have to go there; spend a day and then they might do something”.
2 Comments
Tell a friend
Bury
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Comments
Congrats on making a heroic effort :-) Hope the problem get resolved soon.. till then keep praying for heavy rains..
Well its 6 days now after i manage to successfully file the complaint online, And still no water. I will try and be patient as much as i can while i write this conversation.
After online complaint i have decided to call the praja line.
Dialed 1916 and said hello in a tone suited to a praja.
Surprisingly i get a milder tone from other end .. :(
1916 : Our Internet is not working, i cannot check your complaint status. Which area you are calling from.
Praja : #$%$@#
1916 : Ok i will give u vile parle water department's number. With them, you can check what is the problem and i will also send the reminder as soons as the internet starts working.
Praja (very obliged) : Thank you very much.
Dialed Vile Parle Water Department
Praja : Hello, we have the water supply problem .... @#$##$ .
VPWD : Which ward / area you are from.
praja : @#$#$@
VPWD : Ok, Supply to this ward is alright, you will have to check with the Ward guys. I will give Sub-engineers number from that ward.
Praja : Thank you so much.
Dialed Sub Engineer of our ward.
Praja : Hello, we have the water supply problem .... @#$##$
Sub Engineer : There is 15% water cut.
Praja : But we are not even getting 15% sir. What could be the problem.
Sub Engineer : Not enought water coming to the reservoir.
Praja (confused) : Oh, What could be done now sir.
Sub Engineer : There is some problem in your area, i have been there earlier. Do me a favor, Take meter readings in your building for next 2 days and call me again.
Praja : Thank you very much sir.
Called up home to ask them for meter readings.
Home : "Don't look into this .. it will be solved."