india

Updated: Aug 06, 2016 12:22 IST

Fed up of the errant municipal sweeper who regularly fails to turn up to clear the garbage from your locality? Or forgets to sweep the road and clear the community dustbins?

Help is at hand now. All you need to do is click a picture of the garbage dump or overflowing dustbins and post it on the Swachhata (Cleanliness) App, a mobile application on Android and iOS launched by the Union urban development (UD) ministry for addressing complaints related to civic issues.

Anyone can download the app and file complaints. Once a citizen has posted a picture, it will automatically get forwarded to the concerned municipal authority. All urban local bodies have been mapped to this app.

UD ministry officials said that they have fixed timeframe for redressing different categories of complaints received through the app.

For instance, overflowing dustbins, garbage dumps and sweeping has to done within 12 hours of lodging of a compliant. If there is no water supply or electricity in public toilets or there is a blockage, it will have to be fixed within 12 hours. A dead animal lying on the road will have to be removed within 48 hours.

The app will pinpoint the exact location of the area of the complaint using the geo-location of the pictures.

“The idea behind launching of the Swachhata app was to ensure faster resolution of complaints. Once a picture is posted on the mobile and web platform, authorities won’t be able to ignore it,” said a senior UD ministry official.

The initiative is part of the NDA government’s Swachh Bharat Mission launched by Prime Minister Narendra Modi to make India clean and open-defecation free by 2019.

Once a complaint is registered, the complainant will be provided regular updates on its status, including a picture uploaded by the sanitary inspector once the issue is resolved. Citizens will have the option to give feedback on the quality of resolution.

To ensure that there is no laxity on the part of authorities, a website has also been created for municipal commissioners and their digital team to monitor the complaints that has been received in their respective cities and towns.

Union urban development minister M Venkaiah Naidu also launched a pan-India four digit Swachhata helpline –1969-- where a citizen can call and seek information about any aspect of Swachh Bharat Mission in urban areas including status of their applications for construction of toilets.