“The officer will not only have to take up the complaint but also to ensure that it is resolved to the satisfaction of the citizen and he or she is informed accordingly through the SMS,” said municipal commissioner Asheesh Sharma. “If the complaint is not resolved, the citizen will have to be told about its status through SMS,” he said.

Sharma said if a citizen’s complaint is not resolved in the given time, the officer will find a “red mark” on his records, which will have an impact on his annual increment and promotion. He said the system is being activated through software developed by civic engineers.

“I will keep track of the complaints made by citizens, the status of the complaint and the efforts taken by officers to resolve them. Accordingly, I will initiate action,” he said.

PCMC computer officer Neelkanth Poman said a team of civic engineers is carrying out trials of the system. “A citizen will have to send an SMS to us, which will be routed to the central server. The complainant will immediately get an acknowledgement. And then, he will keep getting SMSes about the status of his complaint,” he said.

Poman said the grievance redressal system is mandatory under the Jawaharlal Nehru National Urban Renewal Mission. “Actually, under JNNURM we are supposed to set up a grievance redressal system. But we are calling it by another name,” he said.

He said the system is being implemented as not many complaints are being received on the PCMC website. “These days, there is more mobile penetration than PC penetration. SMS suits all.”