STATE TIMES NEWS
New Delhi: The Centre has reduced redressal time of public grievances, raised on a dedicated portal, to 21 days, from the existing 30 days.
In an order mentioning revised guidelines, the government also suggested appointment of dedicated officers to handle complaints and emphasised “whole of the government approach” while redressing the grievances.
“This means that in no case grievance shall be closed by stating ‘Does not pertain to this Ministry/Department/ Office’ or its equivalent language. Efforts shall be made to transfer the same to the right authority if the subject of the grievance does not pertain to the receiving Ministry,” said the order issued by the Department of Administrative Reforms and Public Grievances (DARPG). In the ministries/departments where a large number of public grievances are received, it is advised to appoint a dedicated nodal officer with independent charge on sufficient rank so as to ensure timely and qualitative disposal of public grievances, it said.
The order mentioning revised guidelines was issued following the directions of Prime Minister Narendra Modi given during his interaction with the secretaries to the government of India on June 29.
Following the directives, DARPG undertook a review of existing processes to make Centralised Public Grievance Redress and Monitoring System or CPGRAMS — an online portal that allows people to raise complaints against government departments — “more sensitive, accessible and meaningful to the citizen”.
“The 10 steps reforms initiated in CPGRAMS have significantly brought down the average resolution time. Keeping this in view, the maximum redressal time advised by DARPG for cases in CPGRAMS is further reduced to 21 days,” said the order dated August 23, 2024.
In cases, where the redressal requires longer time, an interim reply may be given stating the reason for the same and expected timeline when the grievance could be resolved, it said.
“The focus of the guidelines has been to reduce timelines of grievance redressal to 21 days and improve quality of grievance redressal by adopting technology improvements like integration of grievance portals, root cause analysis using AI enabled dashboards and assessment matrix like the Grievance Redressal Assessment Index,” said V Srinivas, Secretary, DARPG.
He said capacity building of grievance redressal officers is envisaged through the state administrative training institutions.
Srinivas, a 1989-batch Indian Administrative Service (IAS) officer of Rajasthan cadre, said the policy guidelines were formulated after detailed consultations with Ministries/Departments, States/ UT governments, knowledge partners and state administrative training institutes
“The policy guidelines also empower citizens by providing an escalatory appeal mechanism,” he told PTI. Appeal workflow in CPGRAMS presently requires appointment of an officer of the Additional /Joint Secretary rank as the Nodal Appellate Authority (NAA).