KUALA LUMPUR, Aug 2 ― The Selangor government has launched a new smartphone application to allow users to report uncollected garbage in the state with a maximum turnaround time of four days.
iClean Selangor, which was made available on Android’s Play Store beginning July 1, is currently available for use in Klang and will be made available statewide before the start of 2017.
After a brief registration process, the application requires its users to take photographs of uncollected garbage in Klang and the complaint will be forwarded to the command centre handled by the Selangor state government’s new garbage collection monitors, KDEB Waste Management Sdn Bhd.
The photos will be automatically geotagged with their location and forwarded to ground KDEB Waste Management supervisors, who after checking them, will send the complaints to contractors to resolve them.
“The KPI set for KDEB is to resolve the problem in four days, and that is including the complaint day itself,” Smart Selangor delivery unit deputy programme director Dr Fahmi Ngah, who oversees the command centre, told Malay Mail Online.
In the first month of its trial run in Klang starting July 1, KDEB Waste Management received 817 complaints via the application and had resolved all of them, according to the Selangor state agency official.
“In terms [of] statistics, it was 220 complaints in the first week when we started, but now we are down to 140 complaints in the last week, so the complaints [have] been reducing and our collection capacity has been increasing,” he said.
Fahmi urged the residents of Klang to download the application and assured them that taking more photos will only make their respective areas cleaner.
“You will not clean it, but there will be a party that will come and clean it for you,” he said.
The data regarding the complaints and the completion turnaround will then be sent to the state government for further evaluation.
Apart from the existing process, the application also allows users to track the status of their completion in real time ― from the receipt till completion of the task.
“I am even optimistic to see crows falling off the skies because there is no food to forage on anymore (at garbage dumps),” Fahmi said.
The idea for the application came after the state had difficulties in getting a “clear visibility” of garbage collection problems.
“For example, a complainant can say they found a pile of garbage in Jalan Kebun, but when we go there, it’s three piles. So there is a time involved in ascertaining the real problem,” he said, referring to complaints made through the state’s toll free complaint number.
The command centre, which Fahmi oversees, will monitor the turnaround time for all garbage collection complaints and also compile complaints on green waste, such as garden waste, that will be sent to the municipal council.
“At the moment, we are managing garbage collection, but green waste is still under MPK (Klang Municipal Council) because they have some existing contracts running until January next year. But we want to tell the people to send in the complaints anyway. We will filter them and forward them accordingly,” he added.
The annual garbage collection budget allocated for MPK was diverted to KDEB Waste Management starting July 1 to monitor and manage contractors in Klang in order to ensure efficiency.
