Central Depts' Average Disposal Time Of Public Grievances Down 50%

Central ministries and departments have achieved a significant milestone in grievance redressal, with the average disposal time of public grievances reducing to 16 days in May 2023. This amounts to a reduction of straight 50 per cent of the time taken earlier, which has happened for the first time, according to Union Minister of State for Personnel, Public Grievances and Pensions Dr. Jitendra Singh.

Speaking at the launch of the Grievance Redressal Assessment and Index (GRAI) 2022 in New Delhi yesterday, Dr. Singh, who is also in charge of the Prime Minister's Office (PMO), said, "Progress in May this year alone showed 1,16,734 grievances redressed by the Central ministries & departments, with an average disposal time of 16 days per grievance."

Pointing out that the average time for disposal of public grievances was 32 days last year, he expressed satisfaction that the number of disposed public grievance cases has consistently increased, crossing 1 lakh cases per month multiple times this year.

He gave the credit of achieving the feat to the 10-step Centralised Public Grievance Redress and Monitoring System (CPGRAMS) reforms. ''The adoption of the reforms resulted in a significant decrease in the average time for grievance disposal. These reforms have enhanced the efficiency, accountability and accessibility of the grievance redressal process, benefiting citizens and improving public service delivery," he said.

The reforms have also had a positive impact on the disposal of State public grievances cases on the CPGRAMS portal, with over 50,000 cases resolved per month since September 2022, the Minister further informed. CPGRAMS allows citizens to raise grievances against the Central and State governments online.

Dr. Singh shared that Prime Minister Narendra Modi has flagged again and again that grievance redressal is important for accountability of the government and also for the citizen-centric governance. The PM also called for a more robust human interface mechanism including counselling post-resolution of the grievance.

The minister called upon the Department of Administrative Reforms and Public Grievances (DARPG) to devise a proforma for various Central offices & States to effectively monitor the qualitative and quantitative disposal of grievances.

Commending DARPG for making the CPGRAMS portal available in 22 scheduled languages, therby ensuring accessibility for the common man, Singh highlighted the need to integrate State and other government portals with CPGRAMS for seamless accessibility. He suggested a uniform nomenclature for better integration.

During the programme, Singh launched the Grievance Redressal Assessment and Index (GRAI) 2022 in the presence of DARPG Secretary V. Srinivas. GRAI assesses and ranks 89 Central ministries and departments based on efficiency, feedback, domain expertise, organisational commitment and corresponding 12 indicators.

The assessment was conducted using CPGRAMS data between January and December 2022. Out of the 12.87 lakh grievances received in 2022, approximately 75% were resolved within the prescribed timeline of 30 days by the ministries and departments. The Ministry of Parliamentary Affairs achieved the best performance in this indicator.

Furthermore, 22 ministries and departments resolved 100% of grievances related to corruption and 55 of them achieved a resolution rate ranging from 90% to 99.99% while several ministries and departments reported an average grievance resolution time of seven days or less.