Over 52,000 COVID-related public grievances redressed by Centre, states: Govt

More than 52,000 coronavirus-related public grievances were redressed by the central and state governments in the past 35 days, according to an official statement.

During a meeting to review these grievances with the central and state governments, Union Minister Jitendra Singh praised the district collectors -- particularly the Reasi collector who deferred the Vaishno Devi yatra to ensure social distancing -- for handling of issues related to migrant labour and inter-state movement of students during the lockdown.

The Department of Administrative Reforms and Public Grievances' (DARPG) COVID-19 public grievances monitor had seen a disposal of 52,327 cases between March 30 and May 4, 2020, of which central ministries and departments redressed 41,626 cases, it said.

The average grievance redressal time for the central government's COVID-19 public grievance cases stands at 1.45 days per grievance, the department said.

"DARPG has manually analysed 20,000 cases and feedback calls were made to ensure citizen satisfaction. Six rounds of interactive video conferences were held with grievance officers of central and state governments. The DARPG had channelised 10,701 COVID-19 public grievances cases to the state governments, which have been successfully redressed," the statement issued by the Ministry of Personnel, Public Grievances and Pensions said.

Singh said the redressal of COVID-19-related public grievances was pursued with passion not only in the technically advanced large states of Uttar Pradesh, Karnataka, Gujarat, Haryana and Kerala which managed dedicated web portals but also in the north eastern states and union territories of Jammu & Kashmir, Ladakh, Andaman & Nicobar Islands despite constraints in connectivity.

"The timely redressal of public grievances had ensured that public confidence in government was maintained," he said.

Singh mentioned that during the national lockdown several district collectors had taken commendable initiatives, notable amongst them collector of Reasi who deferred the Vaishno Devi yatra to ensure social distancing, the statement quoted him as saying.

"Similar initiatives were witnessed in aspirational districts where collectors strived to ensure food supplies and monitor village-level lockdown issues with alacrity. Amongst the major state-level success stories was the inter-state movement of students and handling of migrant labour issues in which the district collectors and states played a significant part," it said.

Further, states had also successfully addressed issues of hospital infrastructure and quarantine, school and higher education issues, wage and employment issues and other supply related issues, the statement said.

Singh, Minister of State for Personnel, said that public grievances are central to the focus of the Modi government and claimed that the redressal of public grievances has risen from 2 lakh cases to nearly 20 lakh cases in the period 2014-20.

The DARPG has been forthcoming in responding to public grievances by ensuring 90 per cent of disposal rates, it said.

"Further validation of quality of redressal was done through phone calls made for feedback. These initiatives had reinforced the belief that the citizen is the centrality of the government's odyssey," the statement said.

The review meeting was attended by Kshtrapati Shivaji - Secretary DARPG, V Srinivas - Additional Secretary DARPG and Jaya Dubey - Joint Secretary DARPG among others.