Centre reduces public grievance redressal time from 30 days to 21 days; check details

The Centre has reduced the redressal time for public grievances raised on a dedicated portal to 21 days from the existing 30 days.

The government, in an order stating revised guidelines, also proposed the appointment of dedicated officers to handle complaints and emphasised the "whole of the government approach" while redressing the grievances.

"This means that in no case grievance shall be closed by stating 'Does not pertain to this Ministry/Department/ Office' or its equivalent language. Efforts shall be made to transfer the same to the right authority if the subject of the grievance does not pertain to the receiving Ministry," the Department of Administrative Reforms and Public Grievances (DARPG) said in an order.

The government said that in ministries/departments where considerable public grievances are received, it is recommended that a dedicated nodal officer with an independent charge of sufficient rank be assigned to ensure timely and qualitative disposal of public grievances.

Revised guidelines come after PM Modi's directions

The order with revised guidelines was issued following Prime Minister Narendra Modi's directions given during his interaction with the secretaries to the Government of India on June 29.

Following the directives, DARPG reviewed existing processes to make the Centralised Public Grievance Redress and Monitoring System (CPGRAMS)—an online portal that allows people to raise complaints against government departments—"more sensitive, accessible and meaningful to the citizen."

"The 10 steps reforms initiated in CPGRAMS have significantly brought down the average resolution time. Keeping this in view, the maximum redressal time advised by DARPG for cases in CPGRAMS is further reduced to 21 days," said the order dated August 23, 2024.

In cases where the redressal requires a longer time, an interim reply may be given stating the reason for the same and the expected timeline when the grievance could be resolved, it said.

"The focus of the guidelines has been to reduce timelines of grievance redressal to 21 days and improve quality of grievance redressal by adopting technology improvements like integration of grievance portals, root cause analysis using AI-enabled dashboards and assessment matrix like the Grievance Redressal Assessment Index," said V Srinivas, Secretary, DARPG.

He said capacity building for grievance redressal officers is envisaged through state administrative training institutions.

Srinivas, a 1989-batch Indian Administrative Service (IAS) officer of Rajasthan cadre, said the policy guidelines were formulated after detailed consultations with Ministries/Departments, States/ UT governments, knowledge partners and state administrative training institutes.

Appeal workflow in CPGRAMS presently requires the appointment of an officer of the Additional /Joint Secretary rank as the Nodal Appellate Authority (NAA).

"Sub Appellate Authorities (SAA) may be appointed by the Ministries/Departments under the NAA... The Appellate Authorities are required to examine the appeal independently and take a view to allow or reject the appeal. The appeal shall be disposed of in a maximum of 30 days," the order said.

It said a dedicated grievance cell shall be set up in every ministry.

The cell shall be adequately staffed with resources having domain knowledge of schemes/ programmes of the Ministry and also having experience and skill for data analytics and root cause analysis of grievances, the order said.

On resolving a grievance, an SMS/email is sent to the citizen's registered mobile number and email address. If the citizen is not satisfied with the redressal, they can provide feedback on the portal and raise an appeal.

"Going forward feedback will be integrated with other mechanisms like WhatsApp, chatbot etc so that citizens who are not satisfied with their grievance redressal can file an appeal through any of the above modes of feedback," it said.

The DARPG also asked government departments to use two AI-powered analytical tools for deeper analysis of grievances.

"Public grievances are direct feedback from the citizens on performance of programmes/policies/service delivery of the government. Analysis of grievances provide meaningful insight and indicate the areas that require specific attention. Analysis of grievances is extremely useful for driving efficiency in government programmes and policies," the order emphasised.

Complaints relating to corruption, bribery, harassment, or any other vigilance angle of citizens shall be examined closely under the broad guidelines and timelines prescribed by the Department of Personnel and Training (DoPT) and the Central Vigilance Commission (CVC) and in consultation with the Chief Vigilance Officer (CVO) of the Ministry, according to the grievance handling process annexed with the order.

It said that if complaints are found worthy of consideration, an acknowledgement will be sent to the complainant.

However, if the complaint is found false, malicious, intentional, and filed by habitual complainants repeatedly, then "such complainants are flagged and blocked in CPGRAMS," according to the grievance handling process.