7,000 COVID-19 grievances addressed by govt, average disposal time of 1.57 days: Jitendra Singh

As many as 7,000 public grievances related to the COVID-19 pandemic were addressed by the central government till Sunday, Union Minister Jitendra Sngh said on Monday, after resuming work from office along with senior department staff.

The minister reviewed the readiness of the departments under the Ministry of Personnel, Public Grievances and Pensions to fight the pandemic, and asked officers and staff to ensure the work does not suffer at all during this difficult period.

"By April 12, 2020, the government had redressed 7,000 COVID-19 public grievances with an average disposal time of 1.57 days. The ministries and departments with maximum disposal of COVID-19 grievances are Ministry of External Affairs (1,625 grievances), Ministry of Finance (1,043 grievances), Ministry of Labour (751 grievances)," the minister said.

He said the peak disposal of 1,315 grievances per day was achieved on April 8 and April 9.

Singh, the Minister of State for Personnel, had launched the national monitoring dashboard on COVID-19 grievances on April 1.

Circulars were issued to all central ministries and departments and state governments regarding handling of public grievances received in Centralized Public Grievance Redress and Monitoring System (CPGRAMS) on COVID-19, according to a statement issued by the Personnel Ministry.

Singh also expressed satisfaction that so far more than 71,000 people have enrolled at the DoPT's e-learning platform -- iGOT -- to combat COVID-19, which was launched last week, and about 27,000 candidates have completed the course.

The target group is doctors, nurses, paramedics, hygiene workers, technicians, auxiliary nursing midwives (ANMs), central and state government officers, civil defence officials, police organisations, national cadet corps (NCC), Nehru Yuva Kendra Sangathan (NYKS), National Service Scheme (NSS), Indian Red Cross society (IRCS), Bharat scouts and guides (BSG) and other volunteers.

The platform delivers curated, role-specific content to each learner at his place of work or home and to any device of his choice.

"iGOT platform is designed to population scale, and will provide training to around 1.50 crore workers and volunteers in the coming weeks," the statement said.

To begin with, nine courses on iGOT have been launched on topics like Basics of COVID, ICU care and Ventilation Management, Clinical Management, Infection Prevention through PPE, Infection Control and Prevention, Quarantine and Isolation, Laboratory Sample Collection and Testing, Management of Covid 19 cases and COVID 19 Training, it said.

Singh and senior officials of the Personnel Ministry resumed work from their offices on Monday, nearly a month after they were asked to work from home in the wake of the coronavirus pandemic.

All officers including secretaries, special secretaries, additional secretaries and joint secretaries of the ministry reported to work and are following the social distancing protocol issued by the government, officials said.

However, some of the support staff faced difficulty in commuting to office, they said.

Besides the council of ministers, officers of the joint secretary-level and above were asked to resume work from office from Monday by the central government.