REVAMPING GRIEVANCE REDRESSAL SYSTEM

The irony of our nation is that we are very proud of our vibrant democracy and at the same time the trust and confidence on our elected representatives are at negligible levels. Most Urban people have lost trust on their representatives and the rural masses are most times exploited by their representatives.

The next level of public office is with the bureaucracy. Though we have some of the brightest and dynamic people occupying prominent positions in bureaucracy, they are at most times not the first (and sometimes not even the final) point of contact.

This leaves the grievance redressal mechanism with the lower rungs of bureaucracy. There are many problems at this level. Many times the grievance is not admitted and worse is the worm of “passing the buck” that has penetrated deep into Indian bureaucracy. Most officials do not assume responsibility and make aggrieved people run from pillar to post. In other words, most people lose hope of getting their grievance addressed as they do not know whom to approach or contact.

There are some fine online grievance redressal systems in place which altogether eliminates harassment of public by officials. One such is the online portal run by department of administrative reforms and public grievance, government of India.

But still one issue remains unanswered. How will people without access to internet record their grievance? India being still one of the poorest in the world has millions struggling to meet their ends. We have hundreds of thousands of people who are beneficiaries of government services but only on paper. Actual services do not reach them. Those millions also lose hope as they do not know whom to approach or even if they approach, they are denied their rights and exploited. (Else why do we see hundreds of people visiting governor of Karnataka from far flung areas every week?).

Below I make an attempt to take a holistic view of the situation and suggest an E-governance mechanism to overcome the loopholes and flaws inherent in the present grievance redressal system (GRS).

The flow chart below gives the brief outline as to how the new mechanism works.

The new system altogether eliminates the problem of finding the right man to contact. It also doesn't require the aggrieved to travel long distances to concerned offices to get his problem addressed.

The new system works on the below lines;

1.  The aggrieved can walk into any public office, be it a bank, Police station, Post office etc with a hard copy (hand written) of his grievance. He can also carry a soft copy if he can prepare one.

2.   A clerk or an officer in the public office will collect his/her grievance, scan it and send it to a centralized grievance cell (CGC) by E-mail. (No exclusive officer needs to be appointed for this as any clerk can do this job in addition to his normal duties. (Work load will not increase dramatically as the number of public offices in a locality will be proportional to the population)

3.   The CGC will have few employees exclusively to receive, segregate and forward the mails (grievances) to the concerned authority.

4.   As the CGC forwards the mail to the concerned stipulating a time frame in which it should be addressed, a copy of the mail is automatically sent to lokayukta, which will store it in its database.

5. The concerned authority should act within the stipulated time and respond to the aggrieved. The response is also automatically rooted to lokayukta.

6.  As cross verification, the lokayukta can inspect the action taken if it so desires.

7.  In case no action is taken within the stipulated time, the mail from the lokayukta database automatically pops up reminding the authority.

8. Furthermore if no action is taken, the lokayukta can penalize the concerned authority.

The entire working is schematically shown in the flow chart above.

It is noticed that Information commission and NREGA are functioning very well as it is given a legal status.

In line with information commission, a grievance commission can be created which looks into functioning of CGC. If it is felt that the work load on employees in public offices is increased, a grievance officer in every public office can be created in line with information officer. The grievance officer can function as a part time clerk to attend to other duties also.