Technology: Corporators caught on the wrong side

The corporation has shelled out close to Rs 1 crore of public money for procuring the items. Interestingly, only about 50 percent of corporators are reportedly tech-savvy. Even very few can actually use a computer.

On Wednesday, some 75 corporators were also given training on logging into the GHMC website, administrative matters, issue of birth and death certificates, health and sanitation, town planning, activities of citizen centres, etc. It was aimed at making corporators able to sort out public grievances at the earliest through online.

Explanation on the above subjects was also given to enable corporators to handle civic issues facing their respective wards. The training was imparted in four sessions on October 13 and 14 at the GHMC office.

GHMC corporators had been requesting for a long time to the mayor Banda Karthika Reddy and commissioner Sameer Sharma for granting them laptops, printers and Internet data cards. Apart from the laptop, each corporator will be given Rs 9,000 towards cost of Internet connection for one year, another Rs 9,000 for procuring a printer and yet another Rs 4,000 for extra fittings. The entire package costs anywhere between Rs 55,000 and Rs 60,000.

The plan to make corporators tech-savvy was well thought out. The Standing Committee had realised the overall expenditure would be more than Rs 85 lakh. Any proposal costing more than Rs 50 lakh had to be sent to the government for approval, where it might have been rejected.

Therefore, they decided to transfer the procurement process to zonal commissioners, so the amount could be broken into less than Rs 20 lakh each. A tender was also called for buying laptops separately for corporators of a particular zone.

TDP corporator Singireddy Srinivas Reddy told Express that a new laptop with Internet connection would help him in sending ward problems like bad roads, street lights and sanitation problems directly to the commissioner, zonal commissioners and the additional commissioner.

A MIM corporator said, “Earlier I used to come all the way from Serilingampally to meet the mayor and commissioner to submit representations relating to grievances and get them redressed. Now with the new laptop and Internet connection, I can know about the status of my representation and where the file is pending.”

Another TDP corporator said he will print visiting cards with his e-mail address and distribute to people in his ward. Another corporator said he will engage a part-time computer operator for monitoring day-to-day activities online and sending mails to officials.  

Senior GHMC officials said the purpose of giving laptops to corporators would help them to send all agenda copies, notices, decisions and resolutions of the Standing Committee, general council meetings and others through e-mail.

The corporation has to send over 100 pages to 210 members including the co-opted and ex-officio every month. Every two months, council meetings’ questions and answers, agenda copies and resolutions of meetings which comes to about 200 pages are also sent. If everything is sent by e-mail, expenditure on paper charges, courier and time would be saved.