Excelsior Correspondent
NEW DELHI, Aug 25: Union Minister of State (Independent Charge) of the Ministry of Development of North Eastern Region (DoNER), MoS PMO, Personnel, Public Grievances & Pensions, Atomic Energy and Space, Dr Jitendra Singh has asked the State Governments to activate their respective Grievance Cells and make these effective in the true spirit of citizen – centric governance established by the Modi Government.
Speaking after releasing the first-of-its-kind “Grievance Analysis and Reforms Recommendations Study” Report based on the data of the grievances received in 20 Ministries of Government of India, Dr Jitendra Singh said, it goes to the credit of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s personal interest and intervention that the Department of Administrative Reforms and Public Grievances (ARPG), which was hardly known in the past, has become distinctly visible in the last two to three years and the grievance turn-over under the Department has increased more than five times. For example, he pointed out, in 2013, from 1st January to 31st December, the total number of grievances filed in the Grievance Cell was just about 2.09 lakh, but in 2014 soon after the present government took over on 26th May, the seven-month period also made a difference and the total number of grievances registered up to 31st December went up to 2.70 lakh. This trend showed progressive increase and in 2016, while the number of grievances received in the year ending 31st December was 11.94 lakh, in the current year of 2017 till date itself, the number of grievances received was over 9.32 lakh which is a projection of future substantial rise in the remaining four months of the year.
Similarly, Dr Jitendra Singh disclosed that while in 2013 before the present government came in, the average time taken for disposal of any grievance was as many as 220 days, which has remarkably reduced to just about 24 days in the current year of 2017. The increase in number of grievances is, he said, because more and more number of people are feeling encouraged to file complaints because of the prompt response in a time bound manner.
Not only this, Dr Jitendra Singh said, in the last two years, an online “Centralized Public Grievance Redressal and Monitoring System” (CPGRAMS) has been made available with 24×7 facility and easy accessibility. In addition, he said, a unique experiment was started last year wherein he himself as well as other officials of the department randomly call-up some of the complainants to assess their level of satisfaction as also to seek their inputs.
Dr Jitendra Singh lamented that despite repeated reminders, many of the State Governments are yet to accord the due priority to their respective Grievance Cells. In some cases, he regretted that even though a website or a page has been created for lodging the grievances, but the State Government authorities do not even visit or check this page for months together.
Some of the revolutionary practices in governance introduced by the Modi Government, Dr Jitendra Singh said, ranging from self-attestation to abolition of interview for jobs to online grievance, online pension and online RTI have been universally welcomed , but it is a matter of disappointment that many of the State Governments are still not realizing that in the times to come, they will have to adopt themselves to citizen-centric transparency.
Union Secretary ARPG C. Viswanath and other senior officers were also present on the occasion.
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