Centre launches Good Governance Week to boost grassroots service delivery

The Centre on Friday launched the good governance week, an administrative outreach aimed at strengthening citizen-centric governance with a strong focus on grassroots delivery.

Launching the initiative, Secretary in the Department of Administrative Reforms and Public Grievances (DARPG), Rachna Shah, released guidelines for the nationwide 'Prashasan Gaon Ki Ore' campaign.

Shah said good governance week, observed annually around the birth anniversary of former prime minister late Atal Bihari Vajpayee on December 25, has over the years evolved from a commemorative observance into a focused and action-oriented governance initiative.

She emphasised that good governance is reflected not merely in policies and institutional frameworks but in how effectively public services reach citizens and how responsively grievances are addressed.

The Prashasan Gaon Ki Ore' initiative continues to form the core of the good governance week campaign, placing district administrations at the forefront of grievance redressal and public service delivery, a statement issued by the personnel ministry said.

According to the guidelines, district collectors across the country will organise special camps at tehsil, block and panchayat levels, enabling direct interaction between officials and citizens for on-the-spot grievance resolution and improved delivery of public services, the statement said.

The campaign is being implemented in two phases -- a preparatory phase from December 11 to 18, followed by the implementation phase during the good governance week from December 19 to 25.

In the implementation phase, districts will report daily progress on the key parameters, including grievances resolved through special camps, Centralised Public Grievance Redress and Monitoring System (CPGRAMS) and state grievance portals, disposal of service delivery applications, expansion of online services and documentation of good governance practices.

The CPGRAMS allows citizens to raise grievances against government departments online.

As part of the preparatory phase, district collectors and district magistrates have begun uploading district-level data on grievance redressal, service delivery and governance initiatives on a campaign portal, the statement said.

Grievances received through CPGRAMS and state grievance portals up to the start of the campaign period are being taken up for time-bound resolution during the week, it said.

The states and districts have already reported measurable progress during the preparatory phase, the statement said.

According to the daily progress report, as of December 17, 2,11,098 grievances have been redressed through the state grievance portals, while 21,71,179 service delivery applications have been disposed of across the participating districts.

In addition, 330 workshops and grievance redressal camps have been organised at the district level.

The preparatory phase also resulted in the identification of 137 good governance practices and 21 documented success stories related to public grievance redressal, which are slated for wider dissemination during the campaign phase, the statement said.

As part of the next stage of the campaign, district-level dissemination workshops will be organised in all the districts on December 23.

These workshops will focus on discussions around District @100, presentation of at least three good governance initiatives implemented in the last five years, and interaction with citizens, academics and district-level officials, it said.

The workshops will include presentations by district administrations, discussions on local innovations, question-and-answer sessions and documentation of best practices for sharing on the campaign portal.

Referring to the outcomes from earlier editions, Shah noted that good governance week 2024 saw the disposal of over 18 lakh public grievances and the processing of nearly 3 crore service delivery applications across the country, along with documentation of more than a thousand good governance practices and several hundred innovation-led success stories.

She said these outcomes reflected improvements in administrative responsiveness at the grassroots level.

Urging the district administrations to approach the campaign on a mission mode, Shah called for clearly defined and measurable outcomes.

She said sustained engagement by states and districts would be critical to ensuring that the campaign results in tangible benefits for the citizens.