Civic body draws flak over inactive Twitter account
During the August 29 floods in the city, Mumbai Police’s Twitter handle took total control of the coordination and interacting with citizens. It conducted the main job of interfacing with citizens, disaster management cell and information of wards brilliantly.
On the contrary, the response on Twitter by Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) was lagging way behind. The Twitter account of BMC, @MCGM_BMC, is outdated and the last tweet was posted in 2016. The last tweet the civic body wrote was regarding the controversy between comedian Kapil Sharma and their officials. Sharma had alleged that a BMC officer had demanded a bribe for forwarding his file from one table to another. The civic officials had asked for clarification from him. Later, Sharma was served a notice for illegal construction.
Prior to that, the BMC account were just retweets about weather forecast. Interestingly, the weather forecast tweets overlap with Indian Meteorological Department and the Disaster Management department.
BMC Commissioner Ajoy Mehta though has refuted allegations that the Twitter handle of the civic body has been unused. “We are very much active on social sites.” The civic chief has also denied that these tweets are on the weather forecast.
Defending the BMC, Mehta said, “Twitter is not the only platform for communication. It is just one of the many platforms. Also it is not necessary that every thing needs to be tweeted.”
“If any one wants to know anything on the BMC or a civic issue, we have a website which is updated. I am also available at the BMC head office to speak to them,” said Mehta.
Twitterati and activists are upset with BMC. Anil Galgali, an activist said, “I always tag @MCGM_BMC in my tweet regarding various issues, but till date I have not received any response. They never take cognizance of the complaints made through Twitter which is an easy tool of informing the concerned authorities nowadays.”