CHENNAI: Makkal Needhi Maiam (MNM) IT team is looking to enhance ‘Maiam Whistle’ app with new add-ons within the next two weeks. When the app was launched a year ago, about 10,000 people downloaded it within 48 hours.
However, for the past six months, the user interaction had become nil. ‘’Many backend changes will be done shortly. We plan to distribute the monitoring power from district secretaries to candidates of each constituencies,’’ said MNM IT coordinator G Sathyamoorthy. This will directly connect people to candidates and more people will use the app, he said.
The whistle app, brainchild of MNM party president Kamal Haasan, was launched for people to upload pictures of civic issues. “In the course of time, fear of people being intimidated by ward members, negligence by panchayat and corporation officials and improper updation of resolved issues hindered people from using the app,” said Sathyamoorthy.
How the app works
To report an issue on the app, one has to be a member or volunteer of the party. “This is just to verify the authenticity of the content uploaded and protect the identity of the uploader from outside threat,’’ he said.
The content will be received by members of the team, who will then visit the spot to verify the issue. Following that, the content will be uploaded on the app for the public. “We take the issue to the concerned authority,’’ he said. “Issues like clearing excess garbage are dealt with by our volunteers themselves.”
However, in some cases, when it comes to cleaning tanks of temples or lakes, the volunteers pass it on to the officials concerned.
“They accept our requests to react to issues, but we do not know what happens later. In many cases, they sit on the issue while in some, they do clear it, but fail to update us, which in turn leads to us not updating it on our app,’’ he says, adding that it makes people to believe that their report has not been solved and hence, they stop using the app further.
Citing another reason why the number of users dwindled, Sathyamoorthy said, “When we get issues like cleaning temple tanks or lakes, the authorities concerned have snubbed us saying it is not our role to do that. So the issue remains unresolved.’’
When Express requested data of the current number of users and the number of complaints received till date, the party refused to share the details.