KMC visits homes of senior citizens to help fill up forms
Kolkata: The Kolkata Municipal Corporation (KMC), as part of its ‘Nagar Bandhu’ scheme, is visiting homes of senior citizens and helping them fill up forms and complete procedures required to avail of various services of the civic body.
According to KMC officials, civic body teams from every ward are reaching the senior citizens and specially-abled persons who cannot come to the KMC headquarters in person to fill out forms relating to certain civic body services. Recently, a KMC official from Ward 107 visited the home of a senior citizen Jyoti Prakash Sengupta who had approached the civic body for tax benefit. The man was helped with form-filling to avail the same.
A civic body official said that it was part of the Nagar Bandhu initiative that seeks to help the old and the specially abled who cannot be expected to stand in long queues or do rounds of government offices to avail a service.
Mayor Firhad Hakim, last December, had announced that with the help of the municipal commissioner Binod Kumar, KMC has designed a “Nagar Bandhu” scheme. Explaining it, Hakim said there are many who are not fluent with technology and neither can they physically come to the civic body offices for completing procedures to avail of certain services. “People in this category are mainly senior citizens and physically disabled persons. It is difficult for them to step outside and queue up to fill up forms. They also find it difficult to use computers or mobile phones. This scheme will help them get services at their homes,” he said.
Commenting on how it would work, Hakim had said that the KMC Whatsapp chatbot number (8335999111) can be used to register their request. “Once we get it, our officials will visit their homes with laptops and required items. They will then help them fill up or submit forms, or complete other procedures required to avail a particular municipal service.”
Asked if there would be any fee for this, Hakim assured: “Initially we won’t charge anything. Later, we will be introducing a nominal fee for the same.”
