Now, a Twitter handle to address common man’s concerns

New Delhi: Telecom and postal service users can now file complaints with the government directly on social media platform Twitter. Union Communications Minister Manoj Sinha on Tuesday launched Twitter Sewa for registration and resolution of complaints. The complaints lodged through Twitter Sewa will be available to the Ministry officials and can be categorised into immediate, mid-term and long-term complaints.

With this, the department will be able to respond in real-time to complaints, assign it to relevant officers, assign criticality and track the complaints. "Complaints received against any telecom operator and the Department of Post (DOP) on my Twitter handle will be communicated to the telecom operator concerned and DOP immediately for quick resolution and better service," Sinha said.

The platform will also address grievances raised against private players. “I hope both the government and private telecom service providers make use of this tool fullest to its potential to serve the customers,” Sinha said. Twitter India Head (news, politics and government) Raheel Khursheed said to register complaints, a customer will only need to tweet and the platform will pick key words used in the complaint to forward it to the authorities concerned.

“People can use four commands to escalate their complaints. These are #DoTSewa, #BSNLSewa, #MTNLSewa, #PostalSewa," Khursheed said. He said the Twitter Sewa platform was free for government departments and the company expected to gain subscribers in the country from this. Twitter Sewa platform is being used by the Railways, External Affairs and the Commerce Ministries. The social media giant is in discussion with the Home Ministry, Health Ministry, MyGov etc for bringing them on to this platform.