The Ahmedabad Urban Development Authority is preparing to launch an online complaint system covering its 1,800-square-kilometre jurisdiction, including areas near the ring road, around 150 villages and locations such as Dehgam and Sanand. The proposed system will allow residents to report road, drainage and water-related problems through a web portal, mobile application, WhatsApp and a helpline.
According to a report by Gujarat Samachar – Ahmedabad, AUDA is developing a Citizen Complaint and Redressal System, or CCRS, at an estimated cost of Rs 1 crore to Rs 2 crore. The system is expected to provide residents with multiple channels to register complaints instead of relying on letters or email.
The move comes against the background of a large and administratively varied area under AUDA. The authority’s jurisdiction includes urban-edge settlements, villages and rapidly developing corridors around Ahmedabad, where civic infrastructure and construction activity have expanded beyond the core municipal area. Until now, the report said, residents did not have a dedicated facility for lodging and following up on complaints related to basic services.
The proposed CCRS will also use artificial intelligence to study recurring complaints. The system is intended to identify patterns in repeated grievances and alert the authority to problems that may emerge in the future. The report did not provide details on the AI model, the data it would use or the safeguards planned for handling residents’ information.
A separate field-tracking system is also being prepared to monitor project execution. It will record the percentage of work completed on projects and the number of site inspections carried out by officials. A digital dashboard is expected to alert senior officers when work is delayed, enabling them to review the issue and take further action.
For residents, the effectiveness of the system will depend on more than the availability of digital channels. Complaints will need to be assigned to the correct department, tracked through a defined process and closed within a recorded timeframe. The report does not specify the proposed service-level deadlines, escalation mechanism or whether residents will be able to reopen complaints that are marked resolved without adequate action.
The complete implementation of the complaint and field-monitoring systems is expected to take approximately one and a half to two months, according to the report. AUDA is yet to announce the final launch date, operating procedure or details of the portal, application, WhatsApp service and helpline.
