States turn a blind eye to citizen’s complaints: Nearly 1.2 lakh grievances remain unattended

NEW DELHI: Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s ‘good governance’ plank appears to be under threat from state governments, especially those being run by the opposition parties. Nearly 1.2 lakh grievances lodged by citizens on an online central portal remain unattended by states, resulting in an overall 80 per cent pendency and almost 90,000 complaints have been pending for over one year, the Centre has told the states.

The BJP-led NDA government had turned to an initiative of the erstwhile UPA government to allow citizens to lodge their grievances online instead of running pillar to post in government offices – through Centralised Public Grievance Redress and Monitoring System (CPGRAMS) launched in 2007 for central ministries and expanded to states in 2010.

With states appearing to be steadfastly refusing to make the system work, the Centre fears this will reflect on its own governance record, officials said. That is why the Centre has put up a notice on the website saying citizens must take up the pendency of their grievance “directly” with the state concerned, they said.

"Sushasan – good governance – is a cornerstone of an effective administration. An effective grievance redressal system mechanism is a critical part thereof. One of the biggest concerns of the Government of India us how to make the public service delivery system more citizen centric," Alok Rawat, secretary in the Department of Administrative Reforms and Public Grievances (DARPG) under the PM-led personnel ministry wrote to the chief secretaries of all states on April 22. The letter, seen by ET, has a report attached that highlights the abnormal levels of grievance pendency with the state governments to which the complaint pertained in the first place.

The report shows that nearly four-fifths of the 1.74 lakh citizen grievances received on CPGRAMS pertaining to states remain pending. Of these 1,11,946 have been pending with various states for over two months – the deadline fixed by UPA to dispose of citizen grievances – while 89,952 have been pending for over a year, roughly since the time the Modi government assumed charge.

States such as Uttar Pradesh, West Bengal and Haryana have a disposal percentage of just 2 per cent apiece while Karnataka and Assam have notched up a grievance disposal record of just 4 per cent and 5 per cent, respectively, the letter shows. Bihar had 27 per cent disposal rate while BJP-ruled Madhya Pradesh only disposed of 24 per cent of the complaints pertaining to it.