Our Projects

Online Complaint Management System (OCMS)

After the launch of the Citizen’s Charter, Praja conducted a survey to determine what were the most pressing problems confronting the citizens of Mumbai in their interactions with the municipality. People responded by stating that a persistent problem with the administration was its inability to manage the complaints lodged by the citizens, and responding to these in time. Complaints were often lost among the multitudes of files and/or they would not be forwarded to the concerned authorities within the time period stipulated in the Citizen’s Charter.

Praja decided to make an intervention by streamlining the process of complaint management. Citizens could now lodge their complaints via phone/fax/e-mail, by writing letters, by calling the 24/7 hotline number “1916”, by visiting the ward offices personally or by logging on to www.praja.org and registering their complaint on the site. These complaints would be fed into the online complaint management system which was connected to all the ward offices in the city as well as to the Head Office of the MCGM. The complaints had to be resolved within the time period laid down in the Citizen’s Charter. If the complaint was not attended to within the stipulated time, it automatically escalated to the higher authorities until it finally reached the Municipal Commissioner. This ensured accountability among the officials of the MCGM and simultaneously helped in speedy complaint redressal thereby leading to citizen satisfaction.

The OCMS was launched in April 2003 as a joint initiative of Praja foundation and the Municipal Corporation of Greater Mumbai (MCGM). More than 2.5 lakh complaints were registered on the OCMS during the period of its operation from 2003 to 2007. Each month, MIS (Management Information System) reports were generated. These were used to provide feedback to the departments in MCGM on their performance. The reports also helped to indicate the status of infrastructure such as water, sewerage, sanitation, etc in all the wards in the city. The complaint data therefore had predictability value as it projected the possible problems that could arise in the future in different wards.

We worked on a daily basis with complaint officers stationed in the 24 ward offices, training them to use the system effectively. We conducted motivation workshops to encourage complaint officers to see themselves as individuals who played an important role in facilitating the interaction between the citizens and the administration. This enabled complaint officers to take ownership of the OCMS and suggest ways to improve the system. A large part of the success of the OCMS was due to the initiatives taken by the complaint officers in using and bettering the system.

We also conducted three complaint audits. In each of these audits, a sample group of citizens were approached to find out whether their complaints had been addressed within the stipulated time period and whether they were satisfied with the manner in which their complaint had been resolved. This information was cross checked with the complaint data provided by the MCGM about the number of complaints that its ward offices were claiming to have sorted out. The discrepancies would be reported to the municipal commissioner and the four additional municipal commissioners so that action could be taken against the erring ward officials. Click here to view complaint audits.

The MCGM officially closed the OCMS in November 2007. The municipality now runs its own complaint management system.

The OCMS was also launched in Bangalore City in partnership with Janaagraha [link to Janaagraha]. It was initially set up in the BWSSB (Bangalore Water Supply and Sewerage Board) in 2005. Six months later, Janaagraha handed over the system to the BWSSB to run it on its own. A few months after, the BDA (Bangalore Development Authority) independently approached Janaagraha to develop the OCMS for its offices.

An initiative by Praja Foundation

Ford Foundation Narotam Sekhsaria Foundation