Chennai: It’s almost 12 hours since G Paul, the data entry operator, began attending a call from a bigger Chennai war room, monitoring the rain and flood situation in various parts of the city, as his phone rang again, he took it and politely asked residents about their complaints .
His lunch was waiting on his desk for more than two hours but the call didn’t stop.
Not a minute without a hustle and bustle in the control room.
Help 2pm at Thursday, the 50 member volunteer team has attended at least 650 calls.
Of these, many are about stagnation of water, trees fallen trees and garbage.
They also got calls with other department complaints such as metro water for waste contamination and TNeb for power outages.
“On November 7, November 10 and November 11, we receive around 7,000 calls a day.
Today is actually a little less busy,” said P Fermi Vidhya, Assistant Commissioner, who made sure he was motivated.
The system is simple and efficient.
About 150 volunteers, mixed staff and students are contracted, work in three shifts (6:00 to 14:00 to 10pm and 10 nights to 6 am) with 50 in each shift, to ensure the call center 1913 open 24×7.
This complaint is registered on the e-governance portal.
Following this, both residents and engineers in question in Ward get an SMS alert.
It is then forwarded to the volunteer who follows up with officials to ensure complaints are being fulfilled.
The giant screen in the room provides data on the number of calls made, the complaints are delayed and handled.
Other mini control rooms operate on the first floor of Ripon Building where representatives from TNEB, Fire Rescue, police, Air Metro attended the call forwarded to them.
Team 15 other people prepared reports about complaints and delayed.
This report was handed over to 3 IAS officials, who worked in turns.
As part of one of the nodal points of the city flood response system, they have not only worked day and night but have provided assistance needed for staff in the field to work more efficiently.
They even help in coordinating pump placements and labor.
Gagandeep Singh Bedi, corporate commissioner, check the control room twice a day and check the report to ensure a puddle complaint is attended immediately.
“We increase the line to 50 of 15 and now the response is faster in a critical location …
We don’t refuse complaints and the system works efficiently helps the city,” he said.