NEW DELHI: In their eagerness to dispose of public grievances, some government departments and ministries are not taking adequate steps to resolve them properly. Instead, they are taking shortcuts like suggesting approaching another department or asking people to file again online.
This has been found in a recent parliamentary standing committee report which asks the ministries/departments to strictly comply with instructions. “The Committee notes that in their eagerness to comply with established instructions, grievances are increasingly being disposed of by some departments or organisations simply with the suggestion to approach another agency, sometimes a subordinate office,” said a report of a parliamentary standing committee.
The panel noted that in some cases, grievances are re-sent to the agency against which the complaint is made. In others, online grievances are disposed of with the advice to take the grievance to the agency portal or complaint committee.
Department of Administrative Reforms & Public Grievances is the nodal agency for policy initiatives on public grievances redressal and citizen-centric initiatives. There is a Centralised Public Grievance Redress and Monitoring System (CPGRAMS) — a 24x7 online portal to lodge grievances. The CPGRAMS interlinks 87 central ministries/departments and 37 states/UTs.
Data discloses CPGRAMS receives grievances in lakhs and a majority are disposed of. Disposal rate has been nearly 90% between 2016 and 2019. In 2019, total receipts was 17,35,438 and disposal was 14,95,898 at a rate of nearly 86%.
The committee observed that many grievances received on CPGRAMS are related to state governments. Some grievances revealed petitioners were asked to approach the state government and the grievance was disposed of rather than forwarded. “The Committee recommends CPGRAMS should play the role of facilitator for the public without impinging on the nature of federalism.”
DARPG has instructed ministries and departments to give valid reasons for closure of grievances. It asked ministries/departments to comply with DARPG’s instructions.
