Citizens have been bereft of a public forum to air their grievances for three years, as the civic chief has not conducted since April 2020 Lokshahi Din—a monthly exercise where senior bureaucrats address the people’s issues. Activist Sanjay Gurav filed a Right to Information (RTI) application on April 20, seeking information regarding how many times Iqbal Singh Chahal, the civic administrator, conducted the programme.

The administrator’s office, in the RTI reply, claimed that the complaints it receive are forwarded to the department concerned. According to the document provided by the office, the former civic chief heard 88 cases in 2019. In 2020, he heard 46 cases from January to March. Chahal was appointed in May of that year. “Since the first COVID-19 lockdown was implemented, the BMC stopped conducting all kinds of physical meetings, including Lokshahi Din. But it seems the civic chief is still in lockdown mode,” Gurav said.