Yojana-February 2018- PUBLIC GRIEVANCE MECHANISM IN INDIA

(Articles covered - E-Governance: Grievance Redress for a new India 2022 & Public Grievance Redressal : Governance Challenge)

Grievance Redress Mechanism is part and parcel of the machinery of any administration. No administration can claim to be accountable, responsive and user-friendly unless it has established an efficient and effective grievance redress mechanism. In fact, the grievance redress mechanism of an organization is the gauge to measure its efficiency and effectiveness as it provides important feedback on the working of the administration.

STRUCTURE OF GRIEVANCE REDRESS MACHINERY AT APEX LEVEL

The grievances of public are received at various points in the Government of India .There are primarily two designated nodal agencies in the Central Government handling these grievances. These agencies are:-
(i) Department of Administrative Reforms and Public Grievances, Ministry of Personnel, Public Grievances & Pensions
(ii) Directorate of Public Grievances, Cabinet Secretariat

Department of Administrative Reforms & Public Grievances

Department of Administrative Reforms & Public Grievances is the nodal agency in respect of policy initiatives on public grievances redress mechanism and citizen centric initiatives. The role of Department of Administrative Reforms and Public Grievances consists primarily to undertake such citizen-centric initiatives in the fields of administration reforms and public grievances in the Government so as to enable the Government machinery to deliver quality public services to the citizen in a hassle-free manner and eliminate the cause of grievance.

The grievances received by the Department are forwarded to the concerned Ministries/Departments/State Governments/UTs, who are dealing with the substantive function linked with the grievance for redress under intimation to the complainant. The Department ‘takes up’ about 1000 grievances every year depending upon the seriousness of the grievance and follows them regularly till their final disposal. This enables the Department to evaluate the effectiveness of the grievance redress machinery of the concerned government agency.

On the basis of the grievances received, Department identifies the problem areas in Government which are complaint-prone. These problem areas are then subjected to studies and remedial measures are suggested to the Department/Organisation concerned.

Directorate of Public Grievances (DPG)

Based on the review of the public grievances redress machinery in Government of India carried out in 1987, the Directorate of Public Grievances was set up in the Cabinet Secretariat with effect from 01.04.88. This Directorate was set up initially to look into individual complaints pertaining to four Central Government Departments which were more prone to public complaints. Subsequently, more Departments having larger public interface were added to its purview and presently this Directorate is handling grievances pertaining to 16 Central Government Organisations.

The Directorate was envisaged as an appellate body investigating grievances selectively and particularly those where the complainant had failed to get redress at the hands of internal machinery and the hierarchical authorities. Unlike the Department of AR&PG, Directorate of Public Grievances has been empowered to call for the files and officers for discussion to see that grievance handling has been done in a fair, objective and just manner. Wherever the Directorate is satisfied that the grievance has not been dealt in such a manner, it makes suitable recommendations for consideration and adoption by the concerned Ministry/Department which are required to be implemented within a period of one month.

The empowered and enlightened citizens of today is far more demanding and the government, therefore, has to develop, evolve and enable itself to meet the evolving demands of the society that it has to serve. The society today is impatient with the old system of governance which is not coming up to its expectations. To them, a government employee is perceived as insensitive, aloof, corrupt and overall the administrative system as autocratic, opaque and with no work culture

This requires a paradigm shift in governance to a system where the citizen is in the center and he is consulted at various stages of formulation and implementation of public policy. To achieve this objective, India needs a public service which is capable, innovative and forward looking. The traditional role of civil service which was of administrator, service provider and controller of development activities has to make way for the new roles of facilitator and regulator so as to create best environment and conditions in the country for building a nation of excellence.

Department of Administrative Reforms & Public Grievances is the nodal agency in Government of India for formulation and implementation of such policies and strategic initiatives so as to enable and equip the government machinery to meet the challenges involved in achieving this objective.

CPGRAMS

Centralized Public Grievance Redress And Monitoring System (CPGRAMS) is an online web-enabled system over NICNET developed by NIC, in association with Directorate of Public Grievances (DPG) and Department of Administrative Reforms and Public Grievances (DARPG). CPGRAMS is the platform based on web technology which primarily aims to enable submission of grievances by the aggrieved citizens from anywhere and anytime (24x7) basis to Ministries/Departments/Organisations who scrutinize and take action for speedy and favorable redress of these grievances. Tracking grievances is also facilitated on this portal through the system generated unique registration number.

UMANG

UMANG (Unified Mobile Application for New-age Governance) is envisaged to make e-governance . It is developed by Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY) and National e-Governance Division (NeGD) to drive Mobile Governance in India.UMANG provides a single platform for all Indian Citizens to access pan India e-Gov services ranging from Central to Local Government bodies and other citizen centric services.

PUBLIC SERVICE DELIVERY ACT

The previous bill aiming at time-bound delivery of goods and services to citizens lapsed in 2014 and now the government is planning to  re-intoduce it as another bill or a scheme. It stresses on citizen engagement, redressal of public grievances and improving service delivery. The Government of India is considering to eliminate manual interface by mandating delivery of services in electronic mode through an “Electronic Delivery of Public Service Act”.

MyGov

MyGov is Government of India's innovative citizen engagement platform for direct citizen participation in governance by providing an avenue for channelizing their ideas, comments and creative suggestions to Central Ministries and associated organizations.

By: Anupama Sharma