New Delhi: The Central government has released new guidelines for handling public grievances.
In a significant move to enhance ease of living for citizens, the government aims to resolve public grievances within 21 days. The previous timeline, set in 2022, was 30 days.
In cases where grievance redressal takes longer than 21 days, citizens must receive an interim reply.
The guidelines, issued by the Department of Administrative Reforms and Public Grievances (DARPG), are designed to empower citizens, streamline the grievance process, and bring greater clarity and focus to the resolution of public issues.
The guidelines mandate establishment of dedicated grievance cells in every ministry and department, equipped with sufficient resources and personnel knowledgeable about relevant schemes and activities.
All government ministries and departments will have to appoint a point person or Nodal Officer for Public Grievances, responsible for addressing complaints promptly, fairly, and efficiently.
Complaints can be registered on Centralized Public Grievance Redress and Monitoring System (CPGRAMS) portal (www.pgportal.gov.in), which will serve as a single-window platform for grievance submission and tracking.
Highlights Of Guidelines For Handling Public Grievances
* An integrated user-friendly grievance filing platform with CPGRAMS www.pgportal.gov.in being the common open platform on which grievances can be registered by citizens
* Appointment of Nodal Officers for Public Grievances in all Ministries/Departments who will address grievances promptly, fairly and efficiently. Ministries/Departments with high grievance loads to have dedicated Nodal Officers.
* Role of Nodal Officer is effective categorisation, monitoring pendency, examining feedback for process and policy improvements, undertaking root cause analysis, collation of monthly data sets and supervisory oversight of Grievance Redressal Officers of the Ministry/Department.
* Dedicated Grievance Cells to be set-up in every Ministry/Department with sufficient resources having knowledge of schemes and activities.
* Timelines for effective grievance redressal have been reduced to 21 days. In cases where grievance redressal is likely to take longer, citizens shall be given an interim reply.
* An escalation process has been envisaged with the appointment of appellate officers and sub-nodal appellate officers in Ministries/Departments.
* Redressal of Grievances shall be undertaken in a whole of government approach and action taken report shall be filed by the grievance redressal officers on CPGRAMS.
* Feedback on disposed grievances shall be sent to citizen by SMS and email. Every disposed grievance, feedback shall be collected through the feedback call centre and if the citizen is not satisfied he can file an appeal to the next senior authority.
* Government will analyse the feedback from citizens using AI powered analytical tools – the tree dashboard and the intelligent grievance monitoring dashboard.
* A grievance redressal assessment index for ranking Ministries/ Departments shall be issued on a monthly basis.
* Training and capacity building of grievance officers on CPGRAMS shall be conducted through 36 Administrative Training Institutes of States/ UT’s under the SEVOTTAM scheme.
* Ministries/ Departments are encouraged to periodically review grievance redressal in Senior Officers Meetings and ensure adequate communication and awareness of the grievance redressal systems amongst all stakeholders.
