Tag Archives: change

Vote for us – Smart City Idea

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cb-post

Pune Municipal Corporation (PMC) had recently launched a contest called ‘Maza Swapna, Smart Pune’, which when translated to English means ‘My dream, a smart Pune’. Under this contest, the citizens were asked to submit one idea that they think will be a step forward towards making Pune a smart city, in the real sense.

Needless to say, being active citizens, we, at ChangeBhai participated in the contest as well. Our idea (snapshot below) has been selected among the top-30 ideas out of 6000 ideas. In the second round, a voting process will decide which ideas inch forward towards implementation.

Our idea!

Our idea!

Vote for us on www.punesmartcity.in. Our idea is called ‘PMC money’. You will have to browse and locate it.

The idea behind this ‘idea’: We believe that for any PMC initiative or scheme to work, the most crucial bit is ‘citizen engagement’. Citizens should adopt that initiative. There is no point emulating smart city concepts of cities in developed countries, as our cities are very different from theirs. Installing sensors, kiosks and adopting digital technology is not going to work in our cities, where even the streetlights and traffic poles get stolen! The need of the hour is to incentivise citizens to participate in the existing and future PMC schemes and initiatives, which is what our idea is all about.

So, do vote, if you feel our idea will make a difference in the way our cities work. The voting closes at midnight of 9th August 2015. Do not forget to click on Submit button at the bottom after clicking on Vote. And, yes, you can vote for multiple ideas. So if you like any other idea other than ours, do vote for it as well.

Happy change making!

Potholes in the sky?! Yes. Yes. Yes. Possible. Eee dekho tanik.

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Holy moly guacamole!! If you thought the title of this post was misleading, then you my friend, are so wrong. Mumbai has never and will never cease to surprise us. Check this snapshot from a CB user on twitter below:

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Source: ChangeBhai Twitter Account

What the eff is happening, eh, The B the M the C?! Roads ka chalo jabardasti samjhe hum ki tum bole traffic bahut hai n all that. But son! potholes on the skywalk!

If you remember our blog about the ChangeBhai issue# A0431 ‘Lights not functional on Skywalk ‘ from Mumbai, you would remember this location. *drum rolls* The great (greater than Akbar, the great) Andheri Skywalk. The phatichar-est skywalk to have ever graced this city.

Pehle iska light nahi jal raha tha because the meter approval was pending. That we got fixed.

Phir paani was tapkoo-ing from its roof. That somehow got fixed temporarily with some jugaad.

Phir vaapis lights stopped working. Ye chal kya raha hai bhai?

Then these potholes plus hawker menace & a leaking roof again.

(BHAGOOOOO …….BHOOOOOOTTTT! Kidding….but ho sakta hai. We have shakk.)

Accha, doosri baat..Google Andheri Skywalk and you will see such fancy pictures of it, you will be amazed. Aisa to yeh, suna hai, launch pe bhi nahi dikh raha tha . Check out these amazeballs pictures:

Source: photobucket
Image Courtesy: photobucket
Image Courtesy: bollywoodscout.com
Image Courtesy: bollywoodscout.com

If you want more fun in your life (duh!), then keep watching this space. We are thinking of making a mainstream movie on this issue. Andheri Skywalk ki Madhur Kahaniyan.

Anyway, bahut ho gaya rona. We will get this resolved, that’s for sure. And if you spot a similar issue around you, do report it on www.ChangeBhai.in.

Tata. Byebye.

 

Ek Chidiya Ne Band Karwaya Gutter Ka Dhakkan! Kya!?!

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Arre bhai… Sansani Vansani kuch nai. We, the poor ordinary mortals are getting deeply inspired by the Indian news channel hosts, who spew out criminally pretentious yet catchy dialogues, nineteen to the dozen to grab people’s attention.

The ‘Chidiya’ in question is the twitter logo. CHIDIYA = TWITTER. Matbal, an ‘open drain’ issue was resolved through twitter. Samjhe kya..Samjhe kya..

Raise a toast to the Ghatiya Logic pls. Karna padta hai yaar, interesting banane ke liye. :)

chidia-dhakkan

 

Anyways, toh short mein, kahaani kuch iss prakar hai….

A couple of days ago, there was this good Twitter Samaritan, who had been going all out trying to get a drain covered during the crazy Mumbai rains. He happened to tag ChangeBhai, after repeated attempts to get the incorrigible authorities’ attention went down the drain (pun intended). Refer to ChangeBhai Issue A0572, “Manhole Repair”

Our social media team sprung into action, got in touch with the operations team and had the issue taken up within minutes. A snapshot of a part of the twitter conversation as well as the issue image below, to inspire the rest of us to do the same:

user
Twitter conversation
Issue Image uploaded by the Twitter user
Issue Image uploaded by the Twitter user

Toh, bacchon…batao…. ‘Chalaak Chidiya’ kahaani ka moral-of-the-story kya hai.

Teacher…teacher….One should use social media for fun and keeping-in-touch, but kabhi kabaar aise acche kaam bhi kar lene chahiye.

(That chamcha kid in the school, though.)

Do tag us on social media if you feel any similar issue around you needs attention.

www.twitter.com/ChangeBhai

www.facebook.com/ChangeBhai

“Where is Teja?” & “When Will He Fix Our Roads?”

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Three kids are arguing as to whose father is the fastest.

One says,
“My father is the fastest, he can overtake the arrow that he shoots with his bow.”

The second one,
“My father is even faster – when he hunts, he can shoot an animal with his gun and run up to the animal before it falls down.”

The third,

“You actually don’t understand what speed is. My father works in municipality. He finishes work at 4:30 pm, but he’s back home by 3:45 pm already.”

Jokes aside, let me begin the article with all due respect to the municipal authorities who have been going all out to resolve citizen complaints. Most of them do. And then there are the others. There is this super annoying thing which is incredibly common in the case of certain municipal corporations.

Frequent Employee Transfers.

Last time when we were so confused about ‘transfers’, we were watching Mr.Bajaj and Teja getting transferred in Andaz Apna Apna.

teja

For the uninitiated, ChangeBhai maintains an extensive employee database of all parties it works with. Needless to say, the database is updated frequently (weekly). Mostly, the moment a citizen issue comes in, we first forward it to the right ground level employee (junior-most) and then work our way up, if not resolved. But, one could have never speculated about the frequency with which the junior most employees are being transferred for certain cities. It is like the guy sitting on top is getting sadistic pleasure in doing so. No kidding. This does happen in India. Read about this case where MD of J&K’s Road Transport Corporation was frequently transferring class iv employees ‘just for a li’l fun’.

Refer to issue #A0561 “Road hasn’t been made for decades”. After visiting the issue site and being assured of resolving the issue by a certain Mr.Safif, nothing happens! Why? Because the gentleman got transferred without any hint or information about his replacement. Seriously, eh?

Now, one has to just wait to hear from the replacement while the road lies in tattered condition. Sheesh. We so wish the new guy comes in and identifies himself like Teja as soon as the confusion begins.

*drumbeats*

TEJA MAIN HOON. MARK IDHAR HAI.

 

Ek Tha (ne) Lion.

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No, we are not referring to a potential sequel to the Salman Khan starrer movie Ek Tha Tiger. :)

If you remember,  there was this widely circulated video of a lion roaming on the roads of Thane around two months ago. Going by the number of bad road related issues being uploaded from Thane, we can only guess why the lion was roaming around Thane like it was on a vacation. Looking at the roads of Thane, it probably thought it was in his jungle and not in a city. lol.

Actual snapshot from the viral video
Actual snapshot from the viral video

Btw, thank you Thane Municipal Corporation (TMC) for resolving issue#A0551 ‘Road in Bad Shape’ in record time for the first time ever. 15 days! Not bad considering your historical data. That too without bugging us for issue pictures from different angles & directions like these roads are in a remote Chambal valley village and not in your own city. Hmmm… think we will need drones to send the kind of pictures these municipal corporations sometimes ask for. Absurd.

So, ya, thank you TMC. You saved us some major energy and time as the user had never uploaded an image. Bach gaye!

@ChangeBhai users: Pls try and upload an image against your issue. Makes our job much easier.

Also, a shout out to the user sagarkanade for intimating us of the issue resolution as and when it was resolved by the authorities. We really appreciate active participation by the ChangeBhai users post uploading the issue.

Encouraging and timely mesgs from users such as sagarkanade (his comment under the issue copied below) keep us going. Really.

Sagarkanade            26 Feb 2015

———

Hi Team Changebhai,

The road problem seems to be solved . It has been re-layed with additional tar.The only concern that remains is the haphazard way rickshaw drivers stop in the middle of the road for passengers to get in.

But I would like to thank you for reporting the issue and also thanks the authorities who acted on this and got this resolved.

Thanks a ton and keep up the good work.

———

Also, a big thank you to users like Shobhana Anil who have been patiently updating us regarding their issues via Facebook.

We request all our users to keep bugging us regarding the status of your issues. Doesn’t really matter if you issue is pending or gets resolved. We will ensure we pull up our socks and get to work on your issue if it has been pending from our side.

And ya, keep uploading new issues on www.ChangeBhai.in.

Mein Saal Mein Do Hi Baar Aati Hoon. Guess Kaun?

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Mere baare mein zyada mat sochna.
Main dil mein aata hoon samajh mein nahi. Kaun?

Salman Khan. Ahem..dialogue from his latest movie. Am sure you would have heard this.

Mere baare mein zyada mat sochna.
Main saal mein do hi baar aati hoon. Kaun?

Deshbhakti.

Just lol ji.

On a serious note, just remember. No nation is perfect. It has to be made perfect.
Let’s strive each day to make ours the most ‘Perfect India’ we can imagine.
Let’s be a part of this change. Upload an issue today.

www.ChangeBhai.in

Happy Change Making. Happy Independence Day. Jai hind.

gandhi

 

How to Give Ganpati Bappa the Best Welcome This Year?

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Ganpati Bappa Morya, Pudchya Varshi Laukar Yaa!

(Translation: Glory to the Lord Ganpati! Come again soon next year)

We invite Lord Ganpati to come back to visit us year after year, but shouldn’t we ensure his trip is comfortable and worth it. :)

By the way, the Ganpati Mandals in Mumbai mean serious business this time and to ensure our beloved ‘Bappa’ has a smooth ride on the Visarjan day (September 18), they have given a list of 2113 potholes and a deadline of September 16 to their municipal corporation to fix them. They say if they fail to do so, then all the mandals will use their reserve funds and carry out pothole-repair work. Wah! What spirit!

Image Courtesy: Rediff
Image Courtesy: Rediff

This was about a case of ‘good spirit’. A case study from ChangeBhai’s issue database about ‘not-so-good intent’ below:

Check out these issues uploaded by two ChangeBhai users:

Issue# A0429 ‘Huge Pothole outside SaiPalaceHotel’

Before
Before
After
After

Issue# A0418 ‘new potholes on recently made road’

Before

Before

 We are awaiting post resolution image of issue# A0418 from the user

In both the cases, the roads were newly made and had developed potholes shortly after they were repaired. Of course, we got the potholes repaired but the question is ‘How long will they last?’ Having worked with them closely, we can see that BMC is trying to do what they can at the moment, but the backlog of repairs and resource constraint are two issues which make the problem bigger and bigger with each passing day. Koi Sujhaav?

And ya, tab tak,koshish jaari rakhte hain . Do upload similar issues on www.ChangeBhai.in to ensure Bappa’s trip is totally worth it, this time. :) Ganpati Bappa Morya!!

Facebook. Check. Twitter. Check. ChangeBhai. Aaaaa…

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Image Courtesy: SimplyZesty
Image Courtesy: SimplyZesty

Explaining Social Media vis-à-vis ChangeBhai.

facebook  : I like Change

twitter : I want to bring a #Change

instagram : Here’s a picture of the word Change

youtube : Do check out my video ‘How To Spell Change’

linkedin : I am good at bringing a Change

google + logo: Let all my friends be a part of a Change

ChangeBhai :The issue I reported yesterday got Fixed. I Acted & brought a Change!

Bhaiyon..beheno..we all know who’s worse than a person who cribs about the issues around him all the time. A person who gets pissed off with him but doesn’t do anything himself.

I know we really really wish but, these issues that plague our country will never ever take offence and leave if we don’t pay attention to them. 😉 Do ‘pay attention’ to these issues, report them on www.ChangeBhai.in and take a ‘real’ step forward.

For the uninitiated, ChangeBhai is not a social awareness website. It is an online ‘Social Issues Reporting Utility’ to get a fixed set of public issues resolved. It will take less time to upload an issue than it took you to read this post. Try it!

And do share this post.

Garbage, Crows, Murder and Mumbai.

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Do you know what a ‘Group Of Crows’ is called?

A MURDER.

😐 No joke this, Boss. Google Kar lo. “English is a very phunny language”, as Amitabh Bachchan said in some movie. Namak Halal, me thinks.

Do you know where you can see maximum ‘Murders in Daylight’?

MUMBAI.

No. Am not referring to the underworld problems that this city faced in the not-so-distant past. Am referring to the ‘Crows partying on messy garbage bins’ issue which all Mumbaikars are so incredibly exposed to, that they have absolutely no problem ‘Living With It’.

But, not this user. Check  issue# A0450, Garbage with crows feeding. Do check the comment section to know the entire story. For those, who are in a hurry, here is the picture of the issue.

ChangeBhai Issue# A0450, Garbage with crows feeding

ChangeBhai Issue# A0450, Garbage with crows feeding

The user would witness this gross scene everyday on his way to work. After he reported it to ChangeBhai, we immediately flung into action. MCGM shared their side of the story, which was (yawn if you want):

‘We pick up garbage between 9 am-10 am but the nearby slum dwellers and restaurants throw garbage late in the night, which can be seen by office goers (including the user) before 9 am. Hum kya karein, aap batao??’

This issue# A0450 was strikingly similar to a lot of other garbage issues that we receive on a day to day basis. Check this one for example, issue#A0412, Garbage strews outside bins.

In all these cases, MCGM authority after expressing their helplessness asked us for suggestion on what to do about it. They also add that enforcing a fine does not work with the slum dwellers for obvious reasons.

After long discussions, here is what we suggested and got implemented:

Issue#A0412: MCGM placed a guard on their payroll near the bin to warn the slum people and ask them to throw the garbage in the bin and not outside it.

Issue#A0450: MCGM is placing 3 additional bins of 0.5 tonne capacity each in this densely populated area as it required minimum 2 tonne capacity bins to accommodate the garbage here.

What would you suggest we should have done in such cases?

A. Let the crows party #4BajGayeLekinPartyAbhiBaakiHai

B. Enforce penalties #JebDheeli

C. Do what we did #LageRaho

Do upload issues of your aas-padoss on www.ChangeBhai.in if you want to ‘pull the plug’ on such murders.

Note: As we always say,  most civic authorities including MCGM are willing to resolve our issues if we work ‘with them’ instead of ‘against them’.  Try it, we say, if you disagree.