The Hindu : Front Page : Complaints can now be SMSed to Corporation

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Sunday, Nov 04, 2007
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Complaints can now be SMSed to Corporation

Staff Reporter

— PHOTO: M. Vedhan

TEXT SERVICE: Mayor M. Subramanian (seated) and Corporation Commissioner Rajesh Lakhoni at the launch of the SMS-based complaints helpline in Chennai on Saturday.

Chennai: Chennai residents can now send complaints on civic problems via SMS to the Corporation.

Mayor M. Subramanian, who inaugurated the facility on Saturday, said the SMS-based complaints helpline was a progressive scheme that would allow people to text their complaints to the number 9789951111.

The civic body has tied up with IT solutions firm eLogistics to offer the service. It was chosen through a tender process and will be paid Rs.6.83 lakh to run and maintain the system for three years. Once an SMS is received, an automatically generated acknowledgement message with a complaint identification number is sent in response.

Text messages will be stored on an SMS data base along with the numbers they were sent from and forwarded to the departments concerned by e-mail and SMS. Feedback from officials will be sent to the complainant via SMS.

Many cell phone users, who messaged their complaints on Saturday, did not get a response despite several attempts. Thinking the problem may lie with their service provider, they sent messages through other connections but to no avail.The problem was rectified at 9 p.m.

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