Question : CHARTER OF DUTIES

(a) the details of charters of duties endowed with the public grievances department as enshrined in the citizen charters;

(b) the rules for filing complaints with the said department;

(c) whether the Government has disseminated any information to the public in this regard and if not, the reaction of the Government thereto;

(d) the number of complaints registered by the said department during the last three years and the number, out of the said complaints, disposed of and lying pending till date; and

(e) the reasons for the pendency of the complaints?

Minister of State in the Ministry of Personnel, Public Grievances and Pensions and Minister of State in the Prime Minister’s Office. (DR. JITENDRA SINGH)

(a): As per the Citizen’s Charter, the Department of Administrative Reforms and Public Grievances is responsible for fostering excellence in governance and pursuit of administrative reforms through improvement in Government policies, structures and processes, promoting citizen-centric governance with emphasis on grievance redressal, innovations in e-governance and documentation and dissemination of best practices.

(b): The Department of Administrative Reforms and Public Grievances is the chief policy making, monitoring and coordinating department for Public Grievances arising from the work of Ministries/Departments. Allocation of Business Rules 1961, have inter-alia allocated the following work to the Department:- Policy, coordination and monitoring of issues relating to

(a) Redress of public grievances in general; and

(b) Grievances pertaining to Central Government agencies.

The Government has established an internet based Centralized Public Grievance Redress and Monitoring System (CPGRAMS) to facilitate citizens to lodge their grievances from anywhere, anytime for redressal. The System enables Ministries/Departments to take appropriate action and upload the action taken report on the System. The grievances received manually/by post are digitized and uploaded on the System. The citizens can view online the status of action taken on their grievances.

(c): Full page advertisements have been issued in all the major newspapers of this country, in English, Hindi and local languages, on 16th January 2010, 2nd October, 2011 and 20th March 2012 for disseminating information regarding the grievance redress mechanism available on PG portal of this Department

(d): A total of 7,23,263 grievances have been received in CPGRAMS during the last three years. Out of these 5,83,327 have been disposed and 1,39,936 are pending.

(e): Redressal of grievances is done by respective Ministries/Departments and State Governments to whom they pertain, in a decentralized manner. Directions have been issued to all Ministries/Departments/Organizations to redress grievances of the citizens within a maximum period of two months from the receipt, and in case not possible, an interim reply with reasons for delay is to be provided. Under the federal principle of governance, grievances relating to State Governments are forwarded to them for appropriate action.