Govt receives 15,000 public grievance plaints in 5 years

Panaji: Govt received over 50 public grievance complaints on average in a week for the past five years. In the last five years, over 15,000 public grievance complaints were received on state and central portals. Govt received complaints through the public grievance redressal system (PGRS) state portal, offline mode, and the centralised public grievance redressal and monitoring system (CPGRAMS) central portal.

“The grievances received cover various issues ranging from service delivery, demand under the schemes, queries on programmes, complaints against malpractices, corruption, discrimination, harassment, and atrocities,” a senior officer said.

Around 90% of the public grievance complaints against subordinate officers received on the CPGRAMS portal were closed. Besides the portal, the state public grievance department received complaints through other sources, such as hard copies, emails, call centres, WhatsApp, and Raj Bhavan.

The categories of grievances include allegations of corruption, malpractices, employee-related issues, harassment, atrocities, land-related issues, legal matters, pension-related issues, quality of service, and scheme-related issues.

Regarding pendency, a senior officer said, “All grievances received through the PG portal, via email, and manually are forwarded to the departments or heads of departments (HOD) concerned and are under process.”

The state govt launched a public grievance portal for the time-bound redressal of public grievances. A senior officer said that this will make the administration more responsive, accountable, transparent, and citizen-friendly, providing user-friendly platforms for citizens to lodge their grievances and view the redressal status.

The public grievance portal is functional round the clock, and the complainant is informed about the status of the grievance within 48 hours. The status of the grievance is also visible on the PG portal. Each department has been designated a public grievance officer (PGO) who must redress grievances within the defined timeline. Upon exceeding the timeline, the grievance will be escalated to higher authorities for necessary action.

Also, for non-tech-savvy citizens, a dedicated helpline — 9319334335 — has been made operational. This call centre will operate from Monday to Friday, 9.30am to 5.45pm, with a lunch break between 1 pm and 2 pm.