‘Inactive’ citizens ensure app fails to make clean sweep!

Call it an efficient garbage lifting system or the lack of interest shown by people in keeping the twin-city clean, the MiraBhayandar Municipal Corporation (MBMC) is still struggling to achieve even 2 per cent of the Swachhta app download target as part of the 2018 guidelines of the Swachh Bharat Mission (SBM).

In a city whose populace has crossed the 10 lakh plus mark only 12,752 people have downloaded Swachhata, an app launched by the ministry of urban development (MoUD). Out of the 12,752 users the number of active and non-active users stand at 1712 and 10,845 respectively. While the app has received 1591 complaints, the civic administration has successfully redressed 1223 plaints, most in the prescribed time frame, even as 368 invalid complaints were scrapped for various reasons.

“Dedicated efforts are on to further enhance the active participation of citizens especially students and the response is steadily gaining momentum. Today itself more than 4,000 people downloaded the application,” said civic chief Dr Naresh Gite. By using the app, citizens can get their problems related to door-todoor garbage collection collection, sweeping of roads/streets and unhygienic public toilets addressed. In this year’s survey, citizen feedback carries the highest weightage for deciding the rank, this apart from other criteria-municipal documentation and independent observation.

All MBMC personnel have been instructed to download the app and encourage people around them to do the same not only to raise the number of downloads but also to make people aware of how the app can be used to solve their civic problems.