Bombay's civic body gets on Twitter ahead of monsoon

Be it an open manhole or garbage lying unattended or a leaky pipeline, Mumbaikars can now directly complain on the twitter handle of the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation, which has been launched in a new avatar.

The move to activate the Twitter handle of its disaster management cell, @DisasterMgmtBMC, just ahead of the onset of monsoon has been welcomed by politicians and common people alike.

The official twitter handle of the Mumbai civic body was initially launched in June 2015 but it largely remained dormant. The last tweet posted on that handle was on October 4, 2018, in which the BMC alerted the citizens about a polio vaccination drive.

The move to revive the BMC's presence on Twitter was initiated by newly-appointed municipal commissioner Praveen Pardeshi who had directed civic officials concerned to come up with a Twitter handle to reach out to the people.

A senior civic official said the handle would play an important role in disseminating information and redressing various complaints, mainly regarding open manholes and water contamination, during monsoon.

"It is true that we were not active on social media until recently whereas other agencies like the Mumbai police, the NDRF, the Railways besides other municipal corporations and government agencies were active on Twitter," he said.

The move has been welcomed by Yuva Sena chief Aditya Thackeray, son of Shiv Sena president Uddhav Thackeray whose party is in power in the BMC.

"I'm extremely thankful to the Mayor Mahadeshwar ji and MC Pravin Pardeshi ji for the BMC coming on to @Twitter @TwitterIndia as @DisasterMgmtBMC. In my first meeting with Pravin ji, when he took over as MC, I had humbly requested him to initiate this handle," Aaditya tweeted.

In another tweet, he appealed to the citizens to come forward to register their complaints regarding civic issues on the Twitter handle.