Excelsior Correspondent
NEW DELHI, Sept 4: Union Minister of State (Independent Charge) of the Ministry of Development of North Eastern Region (DoNER), MoS PMO, Personnel, Public Grievances & Pensions, Atomic Energy and Space, Dr Jitendra Singh today presented awards and certificates of merit for outstanding handling of grievances.
In a brief ceremony held in the Ministry of Personnel at North Block here, in the presence of Union Secretary DoPT Ajay Mittal, Union Secretary ARPG C. Viswanath and other senior officers from different ministries, the awards and certificates were handed over for two quarters of the current year i.e. January to March and April to June 2017, respectively.
Central Board of Direct Taxes (Income Tax) in the Ministry of Finance achieved a record of sorts by winning an award for the fourth consecutive time in the highest category, the qualification for which is disposal of more than 2,000 grievances during the quarter of an year as well as the feedback received on CPGRAMS (“Centralized Public Grievance Redressal and Monitoring System”) from complainants whose grievances have been disposed off.
The second category award went to the Ministry of Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises (MSME) and Ministry of Panchayati Raj, respectively, while the third category award was won for the second consecutive time by the Ministry of DoNER (Development of North-Eastern Region) and the Department of Administrative Reforms and Public Grievances (DARPG), respectively.
Speaking on the occasion, Dr Jitendra Singh said, the practice of felicitating Ministries and Departments in Government of India for the best performance in grievances disposal was begun in the last two years and its benefits are primarily two-fold, first it helps us to learn about the better practices and mechanism followed by the better performing ministries or departments, which can then be emulated by other departments as well. Secondly, it also generates a sense of competition and encourages improvement in the performance levels, he said.
Dr Jitendra Singh recalled that when the Modi Government came in, the number of grievances registered in the grievance cell was just about 3 lakhs per year, but within a short span of three years, this number has gone up more than four times and now it is about 12-13 lakhs per year. This rise happened primarily because of time-bound prompt response with nearly 100% disposal every week and in addition, introduction of hi-tech methods for the convenience of citizens which include PG Portals and CPGRAMS, he added.
Having achieved a commendable improvement in the handling of public grievances, Dr Jitendra Singh said, now it is time to also focus on the qualitative part of it by both educating the complainants about how to file a grievance and with what motive or purpose and at the same time, also discourage entertaining grievances pertaining to information which is already available in the public domain.
Dr Jitendra Singh also referred to “Grievance Analysis Study Report” prepared by Department of ARPG on the basis of inputs from 40 ministries in Government of India. These, he said, could serve as guidebooks for future improvement in grievance handling.
Dr Jitendra Singh, however, regretted that many of the State Governments were slow in activating their grievance cell and reiterated his appeal to them to work in this direction.
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