Making “LG’s Mulaqat programme” an effective mode of listening to public grievances and in most of the cases issuing on spot instructions for resolution thereof, Lieutenant Governor Manoj Sinha , in yet another such programme asking officials to take proactive measures in seeing that grievances were redressed, denotes the importance given to this important public issue. In fact, by interacting with some people from across the Union Territory , not only does the administration get the actual and on ground feedback about the types of grievances from the public but also some sort of details about how many were settled since the last interaction, given by the administration to such participants, making the entire exercise meaningful. This exchanging of particulars about grievances, which in most of the cases, are expected to be genuine , lends credence to the entire exercise which is imperative in order to move ahead towards an effective governance. Not mincing any words, Jammu and Kashmir has, for decades, remained wanting in having an effective mechanism in place on a consistent basis to be effectively responsive to settling grievances of the public . With that background coupled with rampant corruption in the administrative system , a point of breakthrough or a leap towards improvement has always been yearned by the people. We , therefore, feel that initiatives like the LG Mulaqat are going to break that inertia and, therefore, what is warranted is taking care of the ”opening balance ” and concluding each programme with a ”closing balance” (of list of grievances), the latter being on the minimal , is what can denote and rate the programme as successful. Public outreach , undoubtedly, is what the Government should accord prime importance to and more and effective steps coupled with requisite administrative reforms needed to be taken in this respect.
In fact, not only through inviting or selecting people randomly to host interaction sessions but by putting in place a proper grievances redressing mechanism to exclusively attend to such grievances and complaints is needed and no sooner the same is received than the applicant or the complainant must receive an acknowledgement wherein time specific within which his or her grievance could be looked into and a decision conveyed must be made an established norm. It is a fact to be believed that merely by undertaking such an exercise of prompt response , half of the work is deemed by the aggrieved person to having been done. This elementary but first move of response by the concerned administrative apparatus can establish the claim of the administration that it was wedded to the cardinal premise of accountability with deep rooted belief of being ”user-friendly ”. It is because of this fact that the UT Lieutenant Governor had to observe that his administration was addressing grievances promptly through the ”Mulaqat” programme which speaks for the reason that there has been manifold increase in citizens’ complaints on the portal – JK-IGRAMS. In other words, a sort of trust has started growing in the minds of the people increasingly about the seriousness accorded towards resolving genuine grievances and , therefore, no shirking in their constructive participation in the process can take place either . If regular compliance audit of the levels of performance would be made a part of redressing mechanism, that was bond to result in increased disposal and lesser number of pendency.
One more added improvement in the overall gamut of grievances redressing has been in the form of the directions of the Lt. Governor to the SSPs of all districts to see how they could organise ”Thana Diwas” exactly on the pattern of Block Diwas to get the necessary feedback and take steps to improving the overall image, efficiency, transparency and helping nature of UT policing. On the occasion , the Lt. Governor reminding the DCs, HoDs and Administrative Secretaries of the UT about their constitutional duty and moral obligation to ensure that every complaint was disposed of according to its merit but within the fixed timeframe could have not come at a better moment. We have earlier also suggested that a complaint should be treated as a ”Red Signal” about some type of lacunae in the system needing prompt disposal in respect of which a monthly return invariably must be filed by each Department and sent to the monitoring authority about all particulars – receipt , disposal, pendency and reasons of pendency of grievances / complaints. In turn, such an authority should closely monitor the progress . However, could it still be called just a good beginning , definitely so – but element of consistency is most important.
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