On Day 1 Of Arvind Kejriwal's Doorstep Delivery, 21,000 Calls, But...

Delhi chief minister Arvind Kejriwal applauded the massive response to the flagship programme.

Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal's "home delivery" of 40 government services did not reach every doorstep on the day of launch. Of the 20,000-plus people who called, only 1,200 were able to get through to the call centre, and of them, 369 appointments were fixed, revealed government data released at the end of the day. The team was able to collect documents for different services for 7 residents of Delhi, the government said. 

For the government, the takeaways were the need for more phone lines and operators - a matter it expects to address on Day 2. 

"There were as many as 21,000 attempted calls on the helpline number 1076 which were unable to connect due to heavy traffic," the government said, adding that the callers who got through but failed to speak to anyone will receive a callback.

Applauding the massive response to the flagship programme, the government said Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal is personally monitoring the service "and looking at the data every hour", revealed a statement.

From Tuesday, the government is planning to increase the number of operators from 40 to 80 and the number of phone lines from 50 to 120. It also expects the number of calls to drop, saying it was likely that many called out of curiosity.

The curiosity factor was whipped up early this morning, with full-page advertisements by the Delhi government in all leading dailies. The ad detailed the services provided - delivery of certificate, documents, identity cards or any other services including welfare schemes and water  and sewer lines - and asked the citizens to dial 1076 and place a request. The people, it said, will be informed of the documents they need and executive will visit and help with the job at a charge of Rs 50.

The government has enlisted a private company, VFS Global, to facilitate the services. The firm said for now, they have five executives for each of Delhi's 11 districts. "We plan to have 25,000 such facilitators," said Debkumar Bandopadhyay of VFS.