The Pune Municipal Corporation’s (PMC) lack of awareness has made ‘Lokshahi Din’, a monthly public hearing on citizens’ grievances, a mere formality with not many availing the service, alleged a city organisation.
Under the Right to Information (RTI) Act, Vivek Velankar of Sajag Nagrik Manch sought information on the number of applications received and resolved in the Lok Shahi over the last one year. “We were shocked by the information provided to us. There were only seven applications received by the municipal commissioner’s office under ‘Lokshahi Din’ in the last 14 months,” he said.
Velankar said the low number of applications does not mean the citizens have no grievances but it signifies they are not aware of how to file their application for ‘Lokshahi Din’.
“The PMC should put up a public notice outside each of its offices to create awareness about ‘Lokshahi Din’ among citizens. The civic body has also not published anything about it on its website. It should also provide a facility for citizens to file their applications through an online facility.”
The PMC started the Lokshahi din 20 years ago as per the direction of the state government to resolve public grievances and it has been conducted on the first Monday of every month. The administrative head resolves the citizens’ issues by giving directions to the concerned department. The initiative had a good response from the public initially but citizens were disappointed as their problems were not resolved and the response to Lokshahi Din slowly dropped.
In 2017, the PMC decided to decentralise Lokshahi Din by allowing the first hearing at the zonal level and then at the commissioner level, if required. “The change in process was not conveyed to citizens. Later, the pandemic led to suspending Lokshahi Din for two years which was resumed this year,” Velankar said.