Bombay Municipal Corporation helpline received over 5,100 calls in last 48 hours

MUMBAI: As torrential rains pummelled Mumbai, the 24x7 helpline number of the Bombay Municipal Corporation (BMC) has not stopped ringing since the last two days with civic officials working overtime attending to complaints of water-logging and traffic woes across the metropolis.

The helpline number 1916 has been flooded with phone calls in the last 48 hours receiving over 5,100 calls across all 10 lines mostly with complaints of water-logging, said a senior civic official requesting anonymity.

Water-logging complaints were followed by tree-falls and then by traffic problem, which Mumbaikars inadvertently inform us, said the official.

"The first leg of heavy monsoon is always very critical and difficult to handle, as most of the complaints surface in initial days only," said another officer while attending the call in control room set up in the BMC headquarters here.

"While few complaints are addressed within one or two days, some related to illegal construction, encroachment and maintenance-related issues of roads, missing manholes and damaged footpaths take some time," said the officer deployed in the control room.

RTI activist Anil Galgali, who has exposed several irregularities in the civic body feels that "BMC should improve not only its redressal rate for citizen complaints but should also fix the responsibility of addressing the issue on a specific officer."

However, BMC spokesperson Vijay Khabale said that, "as soon as we receive the complaints, we immediately pass it on to the concerned ward officer and give a complaint number to the complainant and urge him to have a follow-up."