Let me keep the preamble short...
I came back to Hyderabad after a few years and noticed that a giant new garbage dump had been created in a vacant plot right next to my home. I have no idea how this place became the preferred dumping ground for 3-4 colonies in the vicinity but the net result was that it was impossible to reach my house without wading through filth on the road. Just to give you a picture, this is how it looked like
I found that garbage was being dumped by people from my colony, neighbouring colonies, GHMC sweepers and GHMC garbage collectors who were just too lazy to carry garbage collected daily, all the way to the dumping yard.
How do we fix these things? I have seen people trying to get pictures like this published in newspapers and hope to shame the authorities into acting. But why assume that the authorities need to be shamed into doing their job? Have you tried going through the right channels for help?
So I started with a search for GHMC complaint numbers. Surprisingly, I realised that they don't just have a call centre, but also have a complaints portal where you can log complaints. I raised an online complaint and got an SMS with the grievance number and the name and contact number of the person it has been assigned to. I thought that was pretty cool! Two days later, I got another message saying the complaint has been processed and the problem has been rectified. Well..it wasn't! The person had simply closed the complaint without action. So I called the call centre and got the complaint re-opened and escalated. The next morning I left an SMS with the Grievance number to 4 people in the hierarchy (AMOH, Dy Commissioner, Joint Commissioner & Zonal Commissioner). Surprise surprise! A garbage truck was there within an hour to clear the trash and a profusely apologetic supervisor requested me to call him/whatsapp him in the future instead of going to the Commissioners directly. (The guy has been fantastic ever since. He just needed a little nudge.)
Two days later, the problem was back! Trash occupied half the road again because people had gotten used to dumping garbage there. The supervisor was very helpful this time and immediately got it cleared but he had a point - as long as people didn't stop doing this, it was impossible to fix the issue. So I knocked on atleast 50 doors in the neighbourhood and asked them not to do litter on the street if they were doing it now OR give people a dressing down if they find them doing it. Happily, we now have atleast 10 people taking turns to watch and deter people from littering. The problem hasn't been fixed fully ofcourse but atleast I now know it can be, in due course of time.
The learning from the whole exercise has been that GHMC does have processes in place to get things done. We just need to be pro-active and approach them through the proper channels. Here's a picture with all the information you need to approach them. Please share it widely with your friends and family.
If you need some help with the process OR have an experience of your own that you would like to share, please let me know.
I came back to Hyderabad after a few years and noticed that a giant new garbage dump had been created in a vacant plot right next to my home. I have no idea how this place became the preferred dumping ground for 3-4 colonies in the vicinity but the net result was that it was impossible to reach my house without wading through filth on the road. Just to give you a picture, this is how it looked like
How do we fix these things? I have seen people trying to get pictures like this published in newspapers and hope to shame the authorities into acting. But why assume that the authorities need to be shamed into doing their job? Have you tried going through the right channels for help?
So I started with a search for GHMC complaint numbers. Surprisingly, I realised that they don't just have a call centre, but also have a complaints portal where you can log complaints. I raised an online complaint and got an SMS with the grievance number and the name and contact number of the person it has been assigned to. I thought that was pretty cool! Two days later, I got another message saying the complaint has been processed and the problem has been rectified. Well..it wasn't! The person had simply closed the complaint without action. So I called the call centre and got the complaint re-opened and escalated. The next morning I left an SMS with the Grievance number to 4 people in the hierarchy (AMOH, Dy Commissioner, Joint Commissioner & Zonal Commissioner). Surprise surprise! A garbage truck was there within an hour to clear the trash and a profusely apologetic supervisor requested me to call him/whatsapp him in the future instead of going to the Commissioners directly. (The guy has been fantastic ever since. He just needed a little nudge.)
Two days later, the problem was back! Trash occupied half the road again because people had gotten used to dumping garbage there. The supervisor was very helpful this time and immediately got it cleared but he had a point - as long as people didn't stop doing this, it was impossible to fix the issue. So I knocked on atleast 50 doors in the neighbourhood and asked them not to do litter on the street if they were doing it now OR give people a dressing down if they find them doing it. Happily, we now have atleast 10 people taking turns to watch and deter people from littering. The problem hasn't been fixed fully ofcourse but atleast I now know it can be, in due course of time.
The learning from the whole exercise has been that GHMC does have processes in place to get things done. We just need to be pro-active and approach them through the proper channels. Here's a picture with all the information you need to approach them. Please share it widely with your friends and family.
If you need some help with the process OR have an experience of your own that you would like to share, please let me know.
1 comment:
THANKS for this infor and guidance.
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