At 8.81 lakh, citizens' grievances see over three-fold jump

Citizens' grievances against the central government ministries have increased over three-fold in 2015 as compared to the previous year, as over 8.81 lakh complaints have been received by the government, which attributed the surge to a number of "citizen-friendly measures".
A total of 8,81,132 public grievances were received last year as against 2,70,255 such complaints in 2014, Minister of State for Personnel, Public Grievances and Pensions Jitendra Singh said today in a written reply in Lok Sabha.
These grievances were received online through Centralised Public Grievance Redress and Monitoring System (CPGRAMS) against central government ministries.
During 2012, a total of 1,76,126 such grievance were received as against 2,09,637 in 2013, he said.

"The increase is due to a number of citizen-friendly measures taken by the government, particularly integration of Prime Minister Office Public Grievances Redress Mechanism with CPGRAMS, launch of a mobile app through which grievances can be lodged on CPGRAMS through android-based mobile phones, integration of common services centre portal with the CPGRAMS and also higher expectations of the citizens from the government," said Singh.
He said instructions have been issued by the Department of Administrative Reforms and Public Grievances (DARPG) to secretaries of all the ministries to accord top level priority to the redress of grievances and to make it clear to all concerned dealing with public grievances that unwarranted delays in redressing grievances would be viewed seriously.

Some of the other important steps taken by the DARPG for expeditious and effective disposal of public grievance include a grievance analysis study for the top 20 grievance receiving ministries for identifying the major grievances, root cause analysis and systematic reforms for reducing the grievances and regular review meetings for monitoring the pendency, the Minister said.