Officials Made Accountable For Pending Complaints

If a complaint filed with the Directorate of Public Grievances is unattended for more than 15 days, the concerned officer should have to explain directly to the Cabinet Secretary the reason for the delay, according to Arun Shourie, minister for planning and programme implementation.

He was speaking at the launch of the website of the Directorate General of Public Grievances (DPG), `http://www.dpg.bharatsarkar.nic.in'. The website is linked to the computerised system of registering and monitoring grievances and will enable the public to directly register grievances with DPG by accessing it through the Internet.

The system will automatically provide the complainant with a registration number as acknowledgement. With the new system, the individual can simply log in his registration number into the website and check the status of his complaint. In fact, 76 per cent of the claims are settled, which goes to show that most of the complaints received are genuine. Of this, 78 per cent of the grievances result through unnecessary delays, Shourie added.