The Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike (BBMP), the municipal body of Bengaluru has launched a range of apps to ensure redressal of citizens civic issues. One of these apps is the Sahaaya app, which was launched in 2016.

Citizens can lodge their complaint on the Sahaaya app which is a window to 20 departments of the BBMP. However, only six out of the 11,785 complaints registered on the app, between May 1 and June 6 have been resolved, as per The Times of India report.

How Helpful Is Sahaaya App?

There are about 18 categories under the Sahaaya complaints, which includes animal control, education, engineering, encroachment, estate, health, lakes and legal cells among others.

The engineering complaint section itself has around 5,926 complaints registered from May 1. Reportedly, only four have been resolved while 1,348  have been closed due to ‘unknown reasons’.

The app, which has over 50,000 downloads in the Google Playstore, has a mixed bag of reviews. However, the negative comments greatly surpass the positive ones. Most of the criticism is for the ‘sluggishness’ of BBMP in resolving the issues. And in some cases, falsely marking a complaint resolved even when the problem still persists.

Mr Srinivas Alavilli of Citizens For Bengaluru, a people’s collective and user of Sahaaya App, while speaking to The Logical Indian, said, “When they first announced it, I was taking it very seriously. I posted quite a few complaints. Few of my complaints have been solved, while others have not been addressed.”

Srinivas says that instead of the plethora of apps, BBMP should concentrate more on the deliverables. “There is a proliferation of these apps. There is Sahaaya or something else. It would probably be a good strategy if the BBMP concentrates more on the delivery and resolution. It appears that the concentration more is on how many different ways you can raise a complaint, right now. Until and unless the responsibility of addressing the issue is with the ward committee, nothing will change. Ward committee should be empowered and made the focal point of resolving such issues because that is where you better chance of redressal.”

Kumud, a resident of Byapanahalli and an auditor by profession says that in one and a half year, he has registered about 50-60 complaints on the app. “The app in itself is really nice, it registers the complaint assigns an official, however, I feel that the BBMP in itself not very concerned about the grievances of citizens. In fact, one time I spoke to a BBMP official, he said that he has never opened the app. This is the level of understanding and concern they have.”

Kumud further adds that after getting frustrated with his complaints not being addressed, he had to submit an RTI. “In one RTI query, I listed two-three complaints. Instead of answering these queries pertaining to my complaints, they went ahead and solved the complaints instead. However, the RTI cell in the BBMP office has been closed altogether.”

Another Bengaluru resident Pavan tells The Logical Indian that only about 10% of his complaints have been addressed. “Many a time they mark the complaint to be resolved on the app, while the ground realities say otherwise. There have been times when I have approached officials who gave the excuse of lack of funds even for fixing pothole problem.”

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