CHENNAI: Officials will henceforth be rated for grievance redressal through quality monitoring cells set up at the state and district level to collect feedback on petitions under ‘Mudhalvarin Mugavari’ portal.
The officials will be judged based on a score of 100. These include percentage of petitions pending for more than 30 days in the district or departments, feedback on petitions taken and average days taken to dispose of petitions. If any official responsible has a score less than the set parameters, the person will be considered a ‘defaulter.’
This was conveyed to officials by chief secretary Shiv Das Meena after a review meeting chaired by Chief Minister M K Stalin held last month. Sources said the government is giving priority to grievance redressal and strengthening of the mechanism under ‘Mudhalvarin Mugavari’ department.
The provisions for rating officials were introduced after the government, in September 2022, came up with quality monitoring cells to collect feedback on disposed petitions by making calls to petitioners. Petitions were categorised into Category ‘A’ (grievances redressed completely), ‘B’ (petition that has been responded positively but kept pending due to allocation of funds) and ‘C’ (petitions closed without due inquiry, against merits and without due inquiry).
Under the new provisions, a field visit by an officer is mandatory if the petition is about amenities, house site, pension, etc. Senior officials and heads of the departments in the secretariat will have to directly speak to petitioners to get a real picture of the nature of a grievance and how it was handled.
This would mean the head of the department has to make a call to the petitioner five times a month; the district collector, superintendent of police and district revenue officer have to make a call to the petitioners 10 times a month; and DRDA project director will have to make 15 calls a month to ensure that the grievances are addressed.
Provisions have been enabled on the portal for officials to submit rating and number of grievances rated by them so that they can be viewed on the chief minister’s helpline dashboard. The government has also introduced another provision where officials can flag petitions that should not be rated by the quality monitoring cell. These include RTI and grievances related to courts and suggestions requiring policy-level changes.
Officials can be called ‘defaulters’ if they keep more than 10% petitions pending for over 30 days; if more than 20% petitions disposed is graded as ‘C’; if more than 10% of ‘C’ graded petitions gets assigned as appeal (reopened more than once); and if officials delay disposal of reopened petitions beyond seven days.
To be judged based on score of 100
Officials to be judged based on scoare of 100. These include percentage of petitions pending for more than 30 days, feedback on petitions taken and average days taken to dispose of petitions.