ePani – Complaint Management System

(eGovernance Portal for Handling Water Supply Scheme Related

Complaints)

ABSTRACT:
Water Supply & Sanitation Department, Govt. of Maharashtra
has developed a web portal for receiving complaints from the
citizens from rural area of the state. This has given the people a
platform to register their grievances. No complaint can be ignored
now. Each complaint is given an unique number, through which the
status of handling can be tracked by the complainant any time. Not
only that, but the complainant is sent an automated sms on his
mobile, whenever there is any change in the status. The status has
to be changed within a pre-defined time, otherwise automated
sms’s are sent to the higher authorities. In short, this is a close
ended complaint management system, no complaint can be ignored
or shown as solved without attending it. The actual lodging of a
complaint involves typing of the name of the complainant and cell
number. All other details like habitation data, complaint type,
complaint details etc. have been provided in the form of Drop Down
menus.
INTRODUCTION:
After the 73rd Amendment in the Constitution of India, the
powers & responsibility of implementation and O&M of water supply
facilities in the state have been vested into the Local Self
Government institutions. In compliance with the amendment,
Government of Maharashtra has adopted the policy of Community-
led Demand-driven implementation of projects in the Water Supply
& Sanitation sector of the state. After completion of formalities like
requisite Government Resolutions, Guidelines etc., Zilla Parishads &
Grampanchayats are empowered through various Capacity Building
workshops etc. O&M of water supply schemes is a costly affair
involving technical and administrative skills. It is a common
experience that recovery of water cess is not upto the required
levels. Considering this, Govt. of India and GoM have adopted a
policy of earmarking 10% of the allocation in water supply &
sanitation sector for O&M grants. Grants are released to GPs from
this fund. The GPs recording 100% recovery in the previous year are
given 50% amount of their electricity bills as a grant. This will help
in better O&M and higher level of service delivery.
As per the guidelines of GoI, the state is focusing on
improvements in eGovernance and transparency. The state has
always been a pioneer in such endeavors. As a part of this, on the
occasion of Silver Jubilee of the state, a facility to lodge a complaint
directly on the Internet – aptly named as ePani – has been made
available to the citizens of the state.
In the first phase, this facility was made available to the
people of Solapur district. Hon. Minister, Water Supply & Sanitation
Department inaugurated it on 1st May 2010 at Solapur. From 15th
Aug 2010 this facility is made available to all the Districts of state.
 This facility is available on http://epani.maharashtra.gov.in/epani .
The link for online complaint is also available on water supply &
sanitation Dept’s website http://www.mahawssd.gov.in
BACKGROUND:
Maharashtra is a large state with 33 rural districts, 351 rural
blocks & 98000+ rural habitations in 28000 GPs. There are
300,000+ drinking water sources for more than 3 schemes per
habitation. In spite of such a huge infrastructure, there always some
slipping back, water quality problems etc. The main reason of under
performance of the assets is poor operation & maintenance (O&M)
of the schemes. The present system is not as responsive as the
people would like. Although all the schemes are maintained by the
PRIs, people still find it hard to get their grievances solved. The
reasons of poor O&M are many – local Village Water Person is not
paid enough salary, preventive maintenance is lacking, community’s
involvement in daily O&M is not upto the mark etc. All this results in
poor service delivery, poor recovery of water charges and poor
O&M. The scheme goes into spiral of inefficiency.
ePani portal has been developed in order to make the Govt.
officers and office bearers of PRIs more accountable and sensitive to
the grievances of people. Earlier complaints lodged by the people
could not be traced. The complainants always felt dissatisfied. Due
to manual handling of complaints, no data regarding the volume
and nature of complaints was available to the government.
OBJECTIVES & STRATEGIES:
The objective of development of ePani portal is to make
available to people, a platform to put forward their grievances. It
also aims at making the government machinery more public
oriented.
Executive Engineer (WS), Zilla Parishad has been appointed
the Nodal Officer for redressal of complaints, irrespective of the
agency responsible for day to day operation & maintenance (O&M) –
be it a Gram Panchayat, State agencies like Maharashtra Jeevan
Pradhikaran (MJP) or Groundwater Survey & Development Agency
(GSDA) or the Zilla Parishad itself. Once the consumer has validated
the lodged complaint through his cell phone, the complaint is
registered and complaint No. is generated. The consumers will be
able to monitor the status of their complaint at any given time. Even
if somebody does not own a mobile phone, he/ she may use either
relative or friends’ cell phone to lodge this complaint. The major
benefits of this system are as under:
• A consumer will not be required to visit the office for lodging a
complaint.
• The consumer will be updated on the action taken.
• Whichever is the agency handling the complaint, the
consumer will be able to know the status of his complaint at
a single source.
• This will enable unable the department in assessing demand
for new schemes, improvement to existing schemes etc.
 • A good data base can be generated for all complaints
received and daily tracking & monitoring of these complaints
will be much is here for the departments.

MAIN FEATURES:
o Mobilization of resources – The portal has been
developed with the help of Department of Information
Technology (DIT), Government of Maharashtra. The total
cost of development and refinement is less than Rs. 5
Lakhs, which was made available by WSSD, GoM under
eGovernance endeavours.

o Process – The ePani portal is still evolving. The first

version was launched on 1st May, 2010 for Solapur district.
Thereafter workshops were conducted for all the districts. A
demo site was made available to all the districts. Based on
the feedback received from the districts, suitable changes
were made. The portal was made available for all the 33
districts of the state from 15th August, 2010.

o Problems encountered – The mindset of the machinery

needed a change. Since most of the schemes are
maintained by the GPs, it was opined by most of the
officers that it will not be possible to attend the complaints
at their level. This issue has now been sorted out. After a
few brainwashing sessions and after handling a few
complaints, the officers have realised that this system is
useful for them also, as the records of all the complaints
are available with a click of the mouse.

EVIDENCE OF THE PERFORMANCE:

 The home page displays an abstract of all the complaints
received so far duly categorized as per their current status. Owing
to the good rainfall this year throughout the state, number of
complaints is small. It will peak in the summer.

FACTORS OF SUCCESS:
• Each time a complaint is lodged, the identity of the
complainant is verified through his cell phone. This
discourages lodging of false complaints.
• Each time a complaint is lodged, sms is sent to the
Executive Engineer (WS), ZP. It is followed by other
messages periodically, if the complaint is not handled in
pre-defined time.
• Higher officers – CEO, ZO; Divisional Commissioner;
Principal Secretary, WSSD etc. are sent sms if a complaint is
not tackled for longer periods. This has created a sense of
responsibility amongst all the officers.

SUSTAINABILITY OF THE PROJECT:

Since the web portal has already proved its usefulness both
for the people and the officers, the number of hits is increasing day
by day. Although the counter was introduced just 2 months back, it
has already been visited by more than 2500 people. WSSD has
developed Radio Jjingles, News Scrolls and TV ads for promotion of
the portal. After the wide publicity as proposed, the web site will
find many users and it is felt that it will be a big success.

REPLICABILITY:
 The website may also be useful for the urban population in
the future, with suitable modifications. In addition to above, the
state is also thinking of setting up a call centre just like others
states have done. A toll-free telephone line will be made available
to all the people. This will be useful in case of absence of Internet
connectivity.

LESSONS LEARNED:
The major lesson learned is that there is a scope for
improvement in the service delivery in water supply sector and if
properly sensitized, government staff can be motivated to handle
any task.

ILLUSTRATIONS: