Wasa introduces helpline for public complaints

LAHORE: Water and Sanitation Agency (Wasa) has revised its complaint management system by introducing a modern helpline as well as present day technologies like whatsapp and mobile application for swift redress of citizens complaints in the provincial metropolis.

Sources in the Agency revealed that mobile application of Wasa is under preparation while its helpline 1334 and whatsapp number has been announced for public complaints. A two-way counter-check system was introduced by the management to ensure timely clearance of public complaints.

“At first, the customer care representative of Wasa call centre will call the complainant to verify redress of his/her complaint while as a second tier, a senior Wasa official stationed at Wasa head office will call the complainant to ensure his/her complaint is redressed,” said a senior Wasa official while talking with The News.

As the summer season is approaching, Wasa officials are of the view that launch of this efficient complaint redress system will give positive results because number of public complaints increased in summer season due to increased need, usage and discharge of water while outages also play part.

Data sets regarding water consumption and disposal patterns over the year available with ‘The News’ indicated that as the heat starts taking its toll, drinking water pumping and drainage operations get overloaded. This results in sporadic malfunctioning and pitfalls of the system causing inconvenience for the Lahorites.

According to the data available with The News, the total number of complaints virtually doubles during summer and monsoon time. The nine towns of the city, vis-à-vis Aziz Bhatti Town, Shalimar Town, Nishtar Town, Data Ganj Bakhsh Town, Gulberg Town, Jubilee Town, Allama Iqbal Town, Ravi Town and Samanabad Town, are divided into 39 administrative subdivisions.

The Farrukhabad area of the Ravi Town, Johar Town of Allama Iqbal Town, main Gulberg of the Gulberg Town, Krishan Nagar area of the Data Ganj Bakhsh Town, Township and Industrial Area of the Nishtar Town, Baghbanpura area of the Shalimar Town and Fateh Garh area of the Aziz Bhatti Town have been the ones that have reported most complaints over the years.

Sewer blockage tops the list of the complaints followed by pipe-leakage. Water shortage listed third in most frequent complaints while water contamination is a close fourth while billing issue, de-silting, manhole safety issues and ponding make the remaining percentage of the complaints filed.

Wasa Managing Director Syed Zahid Aziz said the agency is aware of the challenges posed by the exaggerated demand, supply and drainage of water in the summer. “Wasa has introduced a Whatsapp number for complaint registration and redress in view of the exaggerate need, usage and discharge of water during summer season and the consequent operational challenges that might emerge”, he told. This would not only make it significantly easy to report a problem but would also improve the complaint redress as the complainant would be able to track the status of their complaint and give feedback regarding the resolution of their problem, Zahid Aziz explained. The department will also follow up with a feedback phone call to the registrants of the complaint system.

The complaint data also showed that the number of complaints have drastically reduced over the past three years. The total complaints recorded in 2015 were 2,609 while the number fell to 1,765 and was reduced to 1,482 in 2016 and 2017 respectively.

Explaining this downward trend, Zahid Aziz said the number of complaints have reduced because Wasa, over the past years, has replaced 1,250 kilometers out of 5,800 kilometer water supply piping that runs through the city.

These replacements were not just randomly done, but the agency used the complaint data to identify the areas which needed priority attention and that is the reason the number of complaints have decreased over the past three years, he maintained. He told that Wasa has to comply with the World Health Organisation’s set standard guidelines. According to these guidelines, all public utility complaint redress should have a 95 percent success rate which only leaves a thin margin of five percent.

Veteran CRP and Dean Department of City And Regional Planning University of Engineering and Technology Dr Ghulam Abbas Anjum while commenting on the issue of complaints and challenges vis-à-vis water and sanitation, said the city needs a serious overhaul regarding its transmission system, in both water supply and drainage systems. He termed the step of replacement of 1,250 kilometer supply piping as a welcomed much needed intervention and was of the view that almost 60 percent of the supply system needs replacement. He, however, was hopeful that the IT interventions and objective use of funds and resources could reform the system for the better.