Government's grievance redressal mechanism a flop so far, over 44,000 plaints by citizens go unanswered

NEW DELHI: The much-touted grievance redressal mechanism set up by the previous government seems to have come a cropper, with a report showing that more than 44,000 complaints by citizens have been pending for over two months with various government departments and over half of these complaints have been gathering dust for over a year.

The report prepared by the ministry of personnel for the new government at the Centre shows that as of May 28 the grievances were pending with 107 different government departments.

Though the guidelines issued by the Congress-led UPA government had specified that all grievances should be redressed within two months, the report shows that as many as 44,293 grievances had been pending for more than two months. Of these, as many as 24,097 complaints had not been redressed even after a year. The department of higher education has 3,041 complaints pending for over a year.