Dr Jitendra Singh awards Certificates for Meritorious Performance in handling Public Grievances on Portal

New Delhi: The Union Minister of State (Independent Charge) Development of North-Eastern Region (DoNER), MoS  PMO, Personnel, Public Grievances & Pensions, Atomic Energy and Space, Dr Jitendra Singh presented the certificates for Meritorious Performance in handling Public Grievances on PG (Public Grievances) Portal at an event organised by Department of Administrative Reforms & Public Grievances (DARPG), Ministry of Personnel, Public Grievances & Pensions.

The Certificates are awarded to Ministries/Departments on the basis of volume of grievances received & disposed off during a quarter. There are three Categories. Ministries/Departments receiving up to 300 grievances are included in Category A, 301-2000 are included in Category B and more than 2000 grievances are included in Category C during the quarter.

Following Ministries/ Department have been conferred with the award of certificates for the quarter July-September, 2018:-

While presenting the certificates, Dr Jitendra Singh complemented the award winning departments/ministries and appreciated them for their efforts in disposing off the grievances. He also appreciated the DARPG for maintaining this exercise of encouraging the ministries/departments. He said that one of the major achievements of Government led by Prime Minister Narendra Modi is that the Grievance cell in the Department has become more active and vibrant. The Minister said that the number of grievances received has reached about 16 lakh per year now as compared to about 2 lakh per year in 2014, recording an increase of about 8 times. This increase is due to the prompt and responsive grievance redressal mechanism, he added. The Minister said that the Government has worked on the principle of ‘Citizen participation’ and ‘Maximum  Governance, Minimum Government’. This process of holding quarterly evaluation has encouraged the ministries to be more responsible and also to maintain the records.

The Minister added that the DARPG has conducted a study to analyse the root cause of grievances received in various ministries. He added that senior officers from the department personally call up the complainants chosen on random basis, who had registered their grievances in the DARPG. The telephone feedback mechanism for grievance redressal helps in getting feedback and suggestions from the complainants, he added. He emphasised that the citizens need to be educated about grievance disposal and satisfaction. He said that awareness needs to be generated through media and by conducting workshops. He also emphasised that the state governments need to play an active role in making their grievance cells more responsive. The Minister hoped that this exercise of grievance redressal would improve further in future.

The Secretary, DARPG, Shri K. V. Eapen said that so far DARPG has awarded 27 ministries/departments. He said that assessment of awardees is done based on an objective criteria.  Eapen said that the Department will see how the grievances can be disposed by the departments leading to the public satisfaction.

The DARPG had instituted the Award Scheme for recognizing meritorious performance by the Ministries/Departments for effective redress of public grievances received on CPGRAMS. Under the Scheme, Certificate of Recognition is to be awarded to three Ministries/Departments which are found to have done outstanding work during a quarter as per the prescribed criteria.

The parameters for evaluating the performance are: – (a). Total disposal of grievances during the period -35% (b). Percentage reduction of grievances pending for more than one year -20% (c). Disposal of grievances pending for more than six months -10% (d). Feedback received on PG portal from the petitioners whose grievances have been closed- 35%.