(GIST OF YOJANA) e-Governance: Grievance Redress for a New India 2022

[FEB-2018]

e-Governance: Grievance Redress for a New India 2022

Public redress of grievances as a cornerstone of ‘Minimum Government, Maximum Governance’ is a key aspect of New India 2022. Closely related to this is the growth of e-Governance through unique and cutting edge initiatives in India especially in the last few years With advancements in Information and Communication Technology (ICT), it has become possible to provide many public services through online modes. In accordance with the estimates made by the National e-Governance Division (NeGD) of the Department of Electronics and Information Technology (DeitY), there are more than 3500 different e-services being offered by various Central Ministries and State Governments.

Sevottam and CPGRAMS

The DARPG has developed a framework called 'Sevottam', which essentially means Excellence in Public Service. Under this scheme, every Government Department must have a Citizens Charter outlining the main services with service standards and timelines,a Public Grievance Redress Mechanism, and a system with assessment and improvement of public service delivery standards.

DARPG has put in place a Centralized Public Grievance Redress and Monitoring System' (CPGRAMS) since 2007. It is a flagship initiative by the Government of India to address and monitor the resolution to redress public grievances in a centralised, transparent, accountable and efficient manner. It is a standardized web based solution and an integrated application to register and to redress the grievances received online, by post and by hand.

Public Service Delivery Act

The Government of India had proposed the Right of Citizens for Time Bound Delivery of Goods and Services and Redressal of their Grievances Bill, 2011 in the Lok Sabha in December 2011. The Bill provided for right to time bound delivery of goods and services to every citizen, mandatory publication of citizen's charter, grievance redressal mechanism for non-compliance of Citizen's Charter and penalty on defaulting officer and compensation up to the same amount to the applicant. However, the Bill lapsed with the dissolution of the 15th Lok Sabha. It is understood that a new law is being contemplated. Meanwhile, it is expected to be launched in the form of a scheme and experiences from there would be helpful in framing the revised Act.

UMANG

As mobile phones are becoming increasingly important in e-governance, the government has recently launched a Unified Mobile Application for New-age Governance (UMANG) Developed by Ministry of Electroniés and Information Technology and National e-Governance Division, UMANG provides a single platform for all Indian Citizens to access pan India e-Gov services ranging from Central to Local Government bodie and other citizen centric services These services cut across Central and State Government Departments, local bodies and other utility services from private organizations, It provides a unified approach where citizens can install one application to avail multiple government services. It can be accessed through smartphones tablets as well as desktops.

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MyGov

MyGov.in is a unique and cutting edge participatory governance initiative involving the common citizen at large, initiated by the Prime Minister in 2014. The platform is now an integral component in dissemination of information and seeking public opinion. It provides citizens a voice in the governance process of the country and creates grounds for them to become stakeholders across the board, including in implementation through actionable tasks. MyGov is estimated to have in excess of 1.78 million users contributing and participating, while it gets more than 10,000 posts per week for further progression toward becoming actionable agenda.

Other Citizen Centric Services

The Andhra Pradesh online portal ‘aponline.com’ is one of the most comprehensive State Government set ups for an e-interface between the Government and citizens with an integrated grievance redress channel as part of its real-time governance initiative. The channel is called
People First or 'www.meekosam.ap.gov.in' and a People First mobile app was launched in September 2017. Also e-Pariharan has been
launched in Kerala to facilitate online lodging of complaints. Complaints can also be received through SMS, WhatsApp, email, etc.

Future Outlook

Adoption of ICT has made significant strides at various levels in Government. Starting from biometric attendance of Government employees, digitizing database of beneficiaries across all schemes, seeding with Aadhaar numbers, using PoS machines for beneficiary authentication and finally transferring the funds to Aadhaar linked bank accounts have made marked improvements in the way the services are delivered to the public Aadhaar-enabling benefits include removal of leakages, duplicates, fakes, and ghosts from the list of beneficiaries. Under the Direct Benefit Transfer scheme (dbtbharat.gov.in), subsidies have already been initiated for LPG and food, and
a different beneficiary model has been rolled out for fertilizers in 2017. The Pradhan Mantri Jan-Dhan Yojana scheme is also more effective with Aadhaar linkage.

Under e-Taal which is a web portal disseminating electronic transactions of e-governance projects, over 30 billion transactions covering more than 3500 services have been undertaken in the calendar year 2017. The number of transactions reported on e-Taal has crossed 82 million per day compared to merely 6.5 million a day in 2013 Table This clearly indicates that e-services are increasingly becoming the way of interface with the citizens. Looking at adoption of technologies such as mobile phones, smart phones and applications like WhatsApp, etc. even in the remotest parts of the country, there is no doubt that a few years down the line there will be hardly any service left requiring manual intervention. Therefore, the strategic plan leading into a New India 2022 would be to use e-Governance processes for public redress of grievances through a number of cutting edge and innovative initiatives, and ensuring that they are utilized to the greatest extent possible. This, together with enhancing awareness, dissemination of information, and greater participation by the public would help India to emerge amongst the frontrunners in public rights redress systems through e-Governance modules amongst the comity of nations.

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Courtesy: Yojana