Is the election season near? I can smell it in the air. All of a sudden, roads that had been in a state of disrepair for ages are getting carpeted. The CCIS website is actually yielding results. The traffic mess in Ramadan isn’t as bad as was initially expected. New signals have been installed. Multiple projects are being inaugurated. Even the readers agree that all these activities have to be support gaining gimmicks.

Maybe the government rightly believes that people in this nation have short term memories. We will forget the problems we had to face during the entire term of Mustafa ‘Kudaal’ as some of the commentors on this blog have named him, and only remember the most recent successes. And it’s not just this particular government. As the elections close in, all elected (and otherwise) leaders step up on not only promising rhetoric but also development activities in their constituencies to lure in gullible voters.
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Says Jamal Shamsi in a comment on another blog here. The topic under discussion? The recently launched CCIS or Citizen Complaint & Info.Management System launched by the CDGK.

Mr. Jamal, in order to test out the system, decided to lodge a complaint of a bad street light after reading the post around 2:30 PM.

I logged complaint of bad street light about 30 minutes back. 5 min back some one called on my cell phone and said ‘ sir yeah light Ifftar sai pehlay theek ho jai gi ‘ (the light will be fixed before iftar) am keeping finger crossed.

Shortly after midnight, Mr. Shamsi reported back with another comment, saying that after iftar, there was no KESC van anywhere in sight, and the light was still out of order. He voiced the same comment we all seem to have about anything to do with government, “expectation was wrong”

at Ifftar it was nothing, for me it was OK, expectation was wrong, but when i left for taraweh i saw one kesc / uc shehzore truck entering the street, now its 2340 i came home - the 4 street light poles are working - my my my - ! unbelievable, they have left a note in duplicate which i need to sign and they will collect sometime tomorrow. I still have to believe that its done. - :D

Are we finally entering an era when govt. departments are actually working for the peoples benefits? While it is an election year, and the current administration needs as much confidence as it can get to return for a second term, i believe as long as the eventual beneficiary are the people, its all the better. What more can you ask from democracy?

CDGK in its bid to modernize the complaint system for better governance has launched this website for Karachiites. It will save our valuable time without getting into the usual hassle of any gov. office. The complain system has a neat & simple form with all required information. Its quite self explanatory. The good thing is all main victims-of-criticism are there i.e KESC, KWSB, KBCA along with CDGK-HO. All our major concerns are listed under Complaint Detail section.

Even if you don’t have access to the internet, no worries. Dial 1339 & it will be done over the phone. Make sure you note down your complain number. I think its a great effort that deserve our appreciation, as well as support. As you can see from the “Already Logged Complaint” link at the top you can track your previous logged complaint as well. All in all, a step in right direction. Well done CDGK.