Over 8 lakh public grievances: Govt says it has institutionalised redressal mechanism

With over eight lakh public grievances received against departments between January and June this year, the government on Tuesday said it has institutionalised the redressal mechanism to ensure swift disposal of such complaints.

Addressing an event, Minister of State for Personnel, Public Grievances and Pensions said that the number of grievances have increased eight-fold, from about two lakh since the BJP the government came into power (six years ago) to about 16 lakh at present, which depicts its pro-activeness, sincerity and timely response.

He said that the government under the leadership of Prime Minister Narendra Modi institutionalised the grievance redressal mechanism in a manner which did not happen earlier.

Singh said states need to be more pro-active in handing public grievances and emphasised that awareness needs to be created among the public about the grievance disposal mechanism.

He asked states and union territories to adopt mechanisms to resolve grievances of public.

A total of 8.21 lakh public grievances were received between January and June 25, 2019, through the Centralised Public Grievance Redress and Monitoring System (CPGRAMS), an online system for receiving and disposing such complaints, according to the Ministry of Personnel, Public Grievances and Pensions.

Around 15.77 lakh such complaints were received last year as against about 18.66 lakh in 2017, it said.

Addressing the national workshop on CPGRAMS reforms, the minister launched the 'Online Hackathon on Data-Driven Innovation for Citizen Grievance Redressal' and invited people to participate in it.

Singh said the government has taken many 'out of the box' decisions which were to benefit the last man in the queue.

Secretary Personnel and Department of Administrative Reforms and Public Grievances (DARPG) C Chandramouli said that the prime minister has given the mantra of 'reform, perform and transform'.

The government needs to function to transform the life of a common man and redressal of their grievances is very important for it, according to a statement issued by the Personnel Ministry.

He said there is a need to focus on monitoring the quality of grievances, along with focusing on the quantity.

DARPG Additional Secretary V Srinivas said that citizens have also been invited to share their ideas on streamlining the management of public grievances on CPGRAMS through an 'Ideas Box' which has been operationalised on DARPG website in collaboration with MyGov.