BDA's complaint system yet to achieve its aim

BDA's complaint system yet to achieve its aim

The Hindu

A complainant says he had to wait for almost two weeks to get a reply

BANGALORE: The Bangalore Development Authority's Online Complaint Management System (OCMS), which was launched with fanfare in June as a first step towards making the organisation a paperless one, has not taken off at all.

Complaints made on the BDA website (www.bdabangalore.com) take a long time to be answered, and the complaint cell number (155302) does not seem to work. A complainant said that he waited almost two weeks before he got a reply from the BDA. "It is much simpler for me to go to the BDA office and have the issue addressed. Even if I have to go there a few times, I know it will be answered," says R. Kumar, a complainant.

When the OCMS system was launched, BDA claimed that it would forward the complaint to the department concerned within the next two days and then get the complaint answered within a week.

It said the systems had an escalation mechanism and when action was delayed, the complaint would be escalated to a higher level. If all this failed, the BDA promised action against the errant employee. Similarly, it said the complaint cell number would be linked with a voice interactive system in which persons could leave complaints.

BDA officials said they did not check the authority's website for complaints often because they hardly received any complaints on it. "From its launch, we have received only about complaints through the website," an official said.

But the larger problem, the officials admitted, was because their backend systems were still not in place. Most of the documents were not yet computerised and so could not be easily accessed by the officials and passed on to the complainants. The BDA said it hoped to complete the computerisation process by January. "After that, people need not come to the BDA to make complaints," the official said.