After taking oath as the mayor of the Kolkata Municipal Corporation for the second time, state transport minister Firhad Hakim vowed to rid Kolkata of waterlogging woes and promised solutions to civic body-related-woes through a new programme “Show the Mayor” where citizens can record the video of any irregularities in civic body services and send it directly to the mayor via a mobile application.

Mr Hakim after taking his oath declared that he is the “Pradhan Sevak” (chief Samaritan) along with his MMIC members and councillors who would seek to jump to the rescue of citizens in times of distress. He said the Mayor’s cabinet will ensure relentless service towards the welfare of citizens.

Highlighting some of the plans that the civic body is mulling to achieve its objective of seamless delivery of civic body services, he said “We would publish a report every six months on the works done and pending to ensure accountability to the public. This is as per the instructions of chief minister Mamata Banerjee. The initial plan was to publish it annually but our leader always accords priority to the people and hence the decision of six months.”

With the KMC being subjected to public criticism and jibes from the opposition parties for allegedly failing to curb waterlogging, Mr Hakim said that the civic body intends to set up about 200 pumping stations that will help drain water from city roads after heavy showers. He said that though drainage system in the city has improved a lot, this time the rain was unpredictable. He, however, assured that waterlogging is now mostly apparent in a few areas which include Lake Gardens, Tollygunge, Jadavpur, Behala, Kidderpore and Amherst Street.

“Waterlogging in Behala will be solved when the Asian Development Bank project that includes canal desiltation work, gets completed. In Kidderpore, one more pumping station will be set up. Areas like Lake Gardens and Amherst Street will also get a pumping station and undergo desiltation work. The same would happen in Tollygunge and Jadavpur.”

Hakim said the KMC will soon start ‘Show the Mayor’ programme which will be on the lines of the Talk to Mayor. “Now, citizens will be able to record irregularities in municipal services and send it directly to me through a mobile application. This is also to ensure we can switch to e-governance where all departments can render services online, thus saving people the several trips they make to civic body headquarters for services such as trade license, birth/death certificate. This will also ward off any corruption that takes place due to middle-men.”