In the course of administration and governance, citizens tend to feel aggrieved, denied their due if not justice, the decisions in their favour delayed or denied and similar numerous instances all lead to having grievances against the administrative apparatus comprising individually or otherwise the officials competent to take decisions. Hence submitting complaints or grievances to such authorities for ‘redressal’ encompasses receipt of complaints, processing them and not only action taken but such action duly conveyed to the complainant. It could not be the end of the story in most of the cases and this process involves time, follow-up and even other means extraneous to the devised procedures. The need, therefore, is felt to have a direct interaction with the concerned officers in order to speed up the process and perhaps ensure that on the spot decisions were taken unless precluded by such provisions of the prevailing system or law which came in between.
To ensure that grievances of the people were duly heard and proper decisions taken, the UT administration has taken a laudable step in that Administrative Secretaries are required to listen to public grievances four days a month , or once in a week on rotation basis between the two capital cities. Not only this, the Administrative Secretaries are also asked to visit a district assigned to them once a month for hearing public grievances. A list of such public functionaries has already been issued by the General Administration Department and we can only appreciate the purpose of and the rationale behind undertaking such an exercise . However, we are apprehensive about the degree of success of such initiative taken by the Union Territory administration on various grounds. Generally, follow up measures of such initiatives are too poor to elicit or reap the desired results in order to win the confidence of the people in respect of an administrative system which really delivers and works satisfactorily.
The procedure for approaching and meeting such Government officials should be made so easy and smooth that a change, a comparative difference, a positive administrative will and a hope of a decision taken on the spot should be hallmarks of such exercise.
How could that be possible unless the case papers of the complainant as also the officers concerned of that particular department were present on the occasion, taking a decision on the spot would not be possible. Conversely, if grievances were there about a languishing or delayed community project, absence of a public utility and the like, again beforehand arrangements to resolve the issue required necessary data, papers and information at the desk of the bureaucrat as also the concerned officers of the department to take and convey a decision.
Complaints, per se, on the other hand, should be treated as “Red Zone” issues and accorded top most priority and fixed time, i.e. within how many days for resolution in whatever manner dictated by the merits of the case, should be mandated and strictly implemented. A monthly report from each department should go to General Administration Department about resolution and pendency of complaints and the same, if in arrears for over a month, should be viewed seriously and linked to drawls of monthly staff salaries. If this mechanism of treating complaints as prevalent in most of the top public sector undertakings of the country as most urgent and important, was implemented in the UT Departments, then even the proposed public hearing of grievances would be rendered infructuous if not the need for the same not arising at all. So the need is to strengthen the basics and impart accountability.
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