Accepting that it has failed to engage citizens and needs citizens to carry out duties it is supposed to perform, the Amdavad Municipal Corporation (AMC) has floated a tender inviting proposals from agencies to build and maintain an app to register volunteers.
The AMC wants volunteers to help it segregate waste, paint walls and roads, plant vegetation, carry out vaccination drives, among other tasks.
On September 21, AMC invited proposals from private agencies to develop a volunteer engagement app that will also register volunteers.
The agency will have to develop an application and website where officials will upload tasks it needs to be done by volunteers, identify and create tasks, define roles and register citizens.
The tender says it expects to register volunteers from schools, colleges, universities and other educational institutions.
Once registered, the AMC will train volunteers on their duties and issue certificates of acknowledgement and give gifts on completion of tasks.
The tender says volunteers will be made to engage in activities such as waste segregation, wall and road painting, plantation drives, providing food and medication kits to households, vaccination drives, park and street cleaning, working with animals, volunteering at hospitals in emergencies and creating awareness about women’s issues.
Sources in the AMC said the civic body has spent crores of taxpayers’ money on citizen engagement apps and platforms over the last few years and none of them are used.
Sources said the AMC earlier spent Rs 2.5 crore on developing 10 different mobile applications for aspects such as employee attendance, public grievances and citizen engagement, which are either not used or have been forgotten.