Soon, contacts of civic officials to be made available on app

“The details of city Corporation officials, including conservancy workers, conservancy supervisors, assistant executive engineers, zonal officials and others, will be made available to residents through the Namma Chennai App,” Chennai Corporation Commissioner G Prakash said during a recent meeting.

Earlier, the members of the public could access the contact details of the field level officials only through the Corporation offices at the ward and zonal levels. On the other hand, the contact numbers of department heads seated in its headquarters, Ripon Buildings, and also zonal officers are available on the official website of the Chennai Corporation.

“If the contact details of officials are available in the public domain, it will encourage more residents to lodge complaints and get the problems solved at the local level itself. The decision will also ensure more public participation,” said A Senthil, a resident of Choolaimedu.

This move has found support not just among the residents, but Corporation officials, too, who said this would help ensure that the resident could get in touch with the official concerned with the matter at hand, instead of making several calls to other officials.

“At present, the public are contacting zonal officers to request them to solve minor problems that can be solved locally. Once the numbers of officials from the lower ranks are made public, it would be easy for us and also for the public,” said a zonal officer.

The civic body had launched the mobile phone application to ensure a hassle-free process of registering civic complaints. The concerned local official is mandated to revert to the complainant with the action taken reports.

Apart from raising complaints, Namma Chennai App can be used for generating birth/death certificates, to download tax receipts, and pay property tax apart from accessing other services that come under the civic body.