In a move which will empower people to seek redressal of their grievances in a time-bound manner by government officials, the state legislative Assembly today passed the Bihar Public Grievance Redressal Bill, 2015.
The bill, introduced by Chief Minister Nitish Kumar in his capacity as the minister of general administration department, was passed by the members by a voice vote.
While introducing the bill for debate and passage, Kumar said the proposed legislation was aimed at empowering the people to seek redressal of their grievances by government servants in a time-bound manner.
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Under the proposed legislation, rules would be framed to make the government servants duty-bound to dispose grievances of the people in a time-bound manner and their failure to do so would amount to misconduct for which errant officials could be dismissed from service, Kumar said.
On the opposition members' charge that the JD(U) government has brought in the bill for political benefits in the poll-bound state, he said it was the government's job to take actions which were not populist in nature, but popular with the people as in a democracy, an elected government was perceived to be a popular government.
"We, being a popular government, are duty-bound to make laws for the benefit of people," Kumar said, adding, the state government has set out to not only empower the people through this legislation, but also to usher in transparency and accountability in governance.
The Chief Minister said he had learnt about primacy of 'loksatta' (power of the people) over 'rajsatta' (power of rulers) during the 1974-JP movement and tried to be among the people, listening to their complaints and ensuring its redressal since assuming power in 2005.
Kumar said he had introduced 'Janata Durbar' in 2006 at the Chief Minister's official residence to hear grievances of the people and ensure its redressal, an exercise which has been continuing till now.
He said he has directed the officials for documentation and computerisation of those complaints to ensure their redressal.
