Have you ever felt tired of vandals destroying your property, sick of sewerage system regulation which for thatĀ matter is not really regulated, threatened by drug addicts and criminals that just pass by unnoticed harming the citizens or may be the regular guys that appear oh-so-normal doing unethical and illegal acts which in someway traumatize you?
Guess what? We all are tired of it.
Being a victim of many other intimidating acts along with the mentioned ones who does not want to eradicate those evils from the society for the mutual ease of everybody.
A group of citizens, Ā just like us has taken the initiative to provide us with an online portal which we can use as a drop box for our complaints.
The fact is, at some point we need to stop blaming the government and rise as a responsible citizen. Feeling the need of it, Uzair Ahmed, the Founder of ActiveShehri.com with the collaboration of a group of Ā ‘Responsible Citizens’ has coined an online solution to our problems so that we don’t have to waste our time chasing the higher authorities to file our complaint against their respective business.
ActiveShehri.com is a platform which can be used to report our personal issues as well as community and development issues related to ourĀ areas.
Another great thing for which this very platform can be considered is that they are planning to create awareness among the citizens by acknowledging and educating on various subjects like ‘How to file an FIR’.
Another plus is, the site will offer a free directory of contact information of higher authorities and departments to provide people with a direct contact.
How will this portal work?
Now, just to give you a rough idea of what kind of problems you are supposed to report there; that could include a person having problems with the education affordability of his children for which he can seek donations from other people.
ActiveShehriĀ will be helpful for those people too who want to donate but they face hard time trusting on other departments for if their money is really helping the cause for which they have donated.
Other issues that encompass health and sanitation problems will be catered too. Other than that, crime and forgery reports can also be sent to the concerned authorities via using this platform.
You can also send in applications based on appeal about the need of a development project in an area or the not-functioning project that is supposed to be completed and working.
One thing should be kept in mind, the people working for and behind the site are neitherĀ apparatchiks norĀ official members of some sort of departments and association that have a direct connection with the concerned higher authorities rather they are regular citizens trying to help people by providing them a medium which can be used as a drop-in box until the complaint is brought under consideration of the respective domain.
The team has been in talks with authorities like the Chief of Civil Services Academy and other influential bodies, a local news channel City42 for a while now.
They plan to form a network of people and the authorities by involving media bodies upon request to assist the citizens with their issues.Ā They also have a detailed categorized procedure on their site to help you send in your complaint. AndĀ a public textual record of total reports including the reports that are on hold, in process and successfully resolved.
Up till now, the startup is only covering Lahore, its constituencies and sub areas but they sure will expand the network to invite, aware and empower more and more people to mutually help each other.
IĀ genuinely hope that this project grows successfully. Join in the league of #activeshehries.
Good start. Thats the only way forward.
Tired of media using same line over and over
“zorurat es amar ki ha ka hukomat” blah blah
The title of the story should have the word “Complaints”, instead of “Complains”.
One question though: How effective would this be as a complaint resolution service if it doesn’t actually have any official stature? I mean without that, it just seems like another platform to blow off steam like we already do on Twitter or Facebook.
Exactly my point. Looks to me just like an online ranting platform!
Guyz… be realistic… we live in a society where there is no central location for any complaints registration. I believe that it might just give the government a nudge in the right direction. We all have individual and highly secured accounts on FB and twitter. but this is public… for everyone’s eyes… first thing towards a change is unity!
Saad, Hopefully my answer will help regarding impact. If you have some nice suggestions please share :)
Hi Uzair. You are very right. These days we are already in communication with Govt Officials as well as digital media. Plus you cant confuse it with other social medias as you cant find anyone exactly if you are one who want to help some one. Plus you cant evaluate performance of your constituency based on issues citizen have faced and number of issue which are ever resolved using twitter facebook. Another major section is knowledge base where all processes will be listed needed for one to solve his daily life issues. Your can have a look at knowledge base and contact center as well. Right now we have no place where all these information is available at one place.
Bhai kaam to ap acha ker rahay ho, success kay chances wese reality base kum hain, mera point of view hai, hope so wrong he ho
Thanks for supporting, If Citizen like you will keep on supporting such project no such project will ever fail. Thanks for your acknowledgement and support :)
Well, the people of KP already have a complaint service and through just one phone call and a fax (for evidential purpose) one can get his/her problem solved in no time…
That is pretty cool. But actually the essence of Active Shehri is not to complaint against govt but to join different entities of society as well. e.g Supporter with needy( like we have started a project in ramzan to connect one who cant afford their livelihood with the one who can actually support them to bear those expenses). Plus its just a start so many other section are in pipeline who are ultimately beneficial for citizen of Pakistan. hopefully you will be love to be a part of it.
good good, add more cities
As there is no data API available so we are working to add all those cities manually which is taking some time. Launching other cities soon.
and they will receive 100,000,000 complains per day
that would be good day for Pakistan when we have all citizens using internet ! and also aware of their rights and know, how to complain on public forum !!!!!!
The only factor we actually want to create in citizen is to create awareness in a sense that they should actually collaborate among themselves to solve issues. The online portal is not for just complaining about government but also if someone want help for his medical treatment he can acknowledge that issue over active shehri and it will be acknowledge by citizen and more preferably anyone living neat his area will be more likely to help him. It will create an aspect of society linkage and unity.
meri complain kernay say pehle aik nazar apni gari per daal lena tum log
is it for Lahore only ??? gimme complaints, I will direct it to Gullu Butt ;)
Right now we have launched with areas of Lahore. Working over other cities. Soon that will be launched too.
gathering complaints on one forum is first step and what about solution to address the complaint if Govt itself not involved behind this idea. Either you publish Cell numbers (where bill pay by govt) of Authorities in response of Citizen complaint so he / she may talk / bother the concern authority if staff not helping Citizen. Your team may set meetings on regular basis with CM with list of un-resolved complaints to get them addressed which may help to get regular hits on the website.
Keep up the good work Uzair … i hope more n more people use this app genuinely ..
Good work
Thanks Azeem
Seems like Uzair here is answering all the questions, So i have one too. I have just signed up with city field not selected, still its locating me in Lahore. BTW it does not tell before signing up that for now you just supporting Lahore users.
What I thought was that site tried to locate me via my ip address and it got it wrong, so let the signup go on without choosing the city, Also its better described here in this article about what website does than on website itself. So you guys need to work on that as well. Rest, I loved the modern web 2.0 layout of it, simple but elegant.
Thanks Khurram, Actually we have launched it as beta version to evaluate idea and get suggestions regarding Idea like some of them are pointed by you. Thanks for your kind suggestions alpha is releasing soon incorporating all these suggestions. Stay Blessed