Tech-savvy DM only a ‘tweet’ away

The East Delhi district magistrate is tipped to be the second officer who is available on the social media for 24 hours, giving live updates about various policies and schemes being implemented by the city administration.

A young IAS officer of AGMU cadre Kunal, posted as District Magistrate of East Delhi, is accessible on Twitter and Facebook where he interacts with people and take feedbacks to strengthen various loopholes in implementation of administrative policies.

The 2005-batch IAS officer’s official website has been redesigned and simplified so that people can send their feedbacks and register their grievances. “The website has not been changed entirely but new features have been added and more content and information for the people have been uploaded,” he said. The officer also said that there are both negative as well as positive comments where many people criticize the administration and many render their thanks. “It is a good platform to know about the problems people face in their areas. We take every feedback very seriously and also attempt to rectify or resolve the issue at the earliest,” he said.    

After Lieutenant Governor Najeeb Jung reviewed the conditions of night shelters and asked the concerned officers to carry out inspections, Kunal began his own probe and took to Twitter to give live updates of the status of the night shelters. He, in fact, gave detailed information about night shelters of east Delhi and also appealed to his followers to keep him informed about homeless people across the city. His tweet reads: “Our officials on night round to ensure homeless sleep in night shelters. A tough job. Difficult to make them move.”

“Last week we opened an account on twitter as @dmeastdelhi so that we can take feedbacks from people and there can be two-way communication,” Kunal said. 

He also added that on Saturday, a special drive was launched to provide live updates on Facebook and Twitter about the homeless being shifted to night shelters. The officer also said that their main goal is to see that not a single homeless person sleeps under the open sky in this wintry weather. “We interact with people on these social networking sites to get their opinions, ideas and their problems,” he said. He also pointed out that they formed a special desk at office to resolve problems of the people from North East and for that he has also made Additional District Magistrate a nodal officer. He is the second officer in Delhi to be so active on social media. It was IPS officer Madhur Verma with Delhi Police who took to Twitter to give live updates about every development in the Uber rape case recently.