Of late, Nepali polity seems to be getting more and more technology savvy, as leaders are joining social networking sites like Facebook and Twitter, and directly engaging with the public. The trend has carried over to the government.
Approximately two years ago, the Prime Minister’s Office (PMO) under Baburam Bhattarai had set up a hotline called “Hello Sarkar”, where anyone could freely call, fax or email to lodge their complaints. Recently, the PMO issued a statement claiming that it has addressed 97 percent of the complaints it received. However, what it means by “addressed” is not clear, because some of the most frequently voiced appeals for road maintenance, reduction of load shedding, and constitution writing, have clearly not been resolved.[break]
In the beginning, Hello Sarkar was effective in addressing complaints related to day to day issues. Passengers on a bus in Biratnagar were reimbursed extra money that the bus driver had fraudulently charged them.
Among other complaints addressed, a transformer that had burnt out was speedily repaired, a No Objection Certificate issued without delay, and a confiscated passport returned, all after interventions from Hello Sarkar. However, as time passed, the callers realized that deep rooted problems were not being addressed by the agency. Hence the volume of genuine calls it gets has decreased from 500 per day to less than 200.
Hello Sarkar records complaints, compiles them according to subject, and sends them to appropriate ministries. Though it may have addressed each problem by completing this segment of the chain, the entire mechanism cannot be called a success until the problem itself is resolved. The PMO reports that the office of Hello Sarkar, initially set up with just five personnel and one computer, was overwhelmed by calls.
It even had to expand within months of its inception to handle increasing input. This indicates that Nepali people bear many grouses against the state, hitherto buried because they had no way of directly reaching out to state apparatus. Hello Sarkar had the potential to fill that void and become a powerful link between the people and the government, but Hello Sarkar has wasted the potential as the state seems half-hearted about solving people’s pressing concerns. Initially a place to voice genuine complaints, Hello Sarkar has become a pastime for pranksters, as most of the calls it gets now are redundant.
In this scenario, for the PMO to declare that it has addressed 97 percent of complaints rings rather hollow. For Hello Sarkar to be truly effective and earn the trust of people, it must be transparent.
The details of how each issue was resolved must be made available. Among the most frequently voiced complaints are those regarding corruption, degrading quality of education, lack of health and transportation services, unfair taxes and trade duties, inflation, and black-market, and the PMOS’s report makes no mention of how these issues were addressed. Although the government’s reaching out to the public was a welcome step, only when it is successful in resolving these long term issues can it claim success. True, it might not be feasible to address all the complaints, but people should at least believe that they got a decent hearing.
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