Huge rise in public grievances since NDA govt assumed office in May 2014

Number of public grievances to touch all time high of 12 lakh this year

From seeking help for faulty mixer-grinder to delay in pension disbursal, the Centre is getting some of these grievances from the public, the number which is likely to touch an all-time high of 12 lakhs this year.

There has been a tremendous increase in complaints against government departments since the National Democratic Alliance (NDA)  government assumed office in May 2014, Union minister Jitendra Singh said on Monday.

The number of public grievances was invariably below two lakhs till 2012 and slightly more till the first five months of 2014, he said.

"Ever since the NDA government took over in May 2014, there has been an increase in public grievances due to various people-friendly measures taken by the Modi dispensation," said Singh, the minister of state for personnel, public grievances and pensions.

Singh said there are some unusual complaints received by the ministry and one such grievance recently processed was of a faulty mixer-grinder.

"There was a grievance from one T Vinod Kumar in Telangana regarding problem in mixer-grinder brought by him online. We sent his complaint to the Ministry of Consumer Affairs and at last he got the machine changed," he said, explaining the kind of complaints being received by the government.

Singh said the government has cut down time taken to resolve public grievances from over eight months (253 days) in 2012 to an average 24 days in 2017.

"The increase in grievances is also due to prompt disposal by the government," said Singh.

About 1.75 lakh and 2.09 lakh grievances were received in 2012 and 2013 respectively.

The government had got nearly 2.7 lakh public grievances in 2014, of which 2.63 lakhs (97.47 per cent) were disposed of in an average 146 days, he said.

In 2015, 8.79 lakh public grievances were received and 7.69 lakhs of them (87.53 per cent) were resolved.

The ministry received a highest of 11.94 lakh public grievances last year and resolved 11.87 lakhs of them (99.35 per cent), with an average time taken to dispose them being 38 days, Singh said.

So far this year, about 5.49 lakh public grievances were received and of them, 5.47 lakhs (99.53 per cent) were resolved, he said, adding that the average time taken to resolve these plaints was 24 days.

"There has been an increase in public grievances this year. Seeing the number of first five months, we expect that the number of complaints may touch 12 lakhs," Singh said.

He said the government is trying to cut the time taken to process such complaints to a week from the existing about 24 days.

These complaints were received mainly through the Centralised Public Grievance Redress and Monitoring System (CPGRAMS) — an online system for addressing complaints against government departments from people.

Giving details of steps being taken to resolve people's complaints, the minister said he was also making calls to some complainants randomly to check whether their grievances were getting resolved to their satisfaction.

"I called up a retired Colonel in Punjab who had raised a complaint. I introduced myself as only Jitendra Singh (rather than a Union minister) on a call made to him a few days ago to inform him about the resolution of his complaint.

"We spoke for some time on the matter and after informing him about the successful resolution of the complaint I hung up only to get a return call from the person feeling extremely elated for having received a phone call from the minister himself. It is a historic step in good governance," he said.