Mumbai, September 01: The Bhandup municipal ward, which had not looked into even one of the 111 illegal construction complaints it received through the citizens’ helpline — 1916– in the past three months, addressed as many as 70 of them in just a few hours on Monday.
DNA carried a story in its August 31 edition, branding the ward, under which comes Vikhroli, Powai, Nahir and Bhandup, as the worst performer among the 24 municipal wards in Mumbai.
The report came as a rude jolt to the officials in charge of buildings and factories department of the ward. Immediately after reaching office on Monday, they started attending the complaints, and within a few hours, as many as 70 complaints were dealt with. From a zero delivery record, it suddenly became a contestant for the top honours with 63% of the complaints addressed.
Vasant Patwardhan, assistant commissioner of the ward, admitted that his department had been lax in dealing with the complaints. He thanked DNA for the “wakeup call”. “I will make sure it is not repeated again,” he said.
Patwardhan added that the concerned officials promptly addressed illegal construction complaints, directly made to the ward office in writing, but were lax in attending to complaints registered on the citizens’ helpline.
Several complainants reacted to the news carried on Monday. A Santa cruz resident called up to say that his complaint regarding an illegal activity in his locality (K West ward) was lying unattended for over six months. Over 13,323 complaints have been registered via the helpline since June 1.
–Agencies–