Recent Initiatives in Grievance Redressal Mechanisms

Various grievance Redressal mechanisms in India include – grievance Redressal machinery under citizen’s charters; Ombudsmen including Lokpal and Lokayukta; grievance Redressal mechanisms in various departments; consumer courts; call centres; web enabled grievances disposal and monitoring systems etc. A few new terms have been added in this in recent months as follows:

CPGRAMS

Centralized Public Grievance Redress and Monitoring System (CPGRAMS) is an integrated online grievance Redressal and monitoring system developed by NIC in association with Directorate of Public Grievances (DPG) and Department of Administrative Reforms and Public Grievances (DARPG). It has been devised as a simple procedure for citizens to lodge their complaints and reduce the loss of complaints in transit. Citizens can keep track of the status of their complaints. It has tried to automate the entire process of grievance Redressal and monitoring.

PRAGATI

Pro-Active Governance and Timely Implementation (PRAGATI) is a multi-purpose and multi-modal grievance Redressal platform. It was designed for simultaneously monitoring and reviewing important state and union government schemes. It was designed by PMO with help of NIC and brings together PMO, Union Government Secretaries, and Chief Secretaries of the States at one stage, fostering cooperative federalism.

E-Nivaran

Central Board of Direct Taxes (CBDT) has launched “e-nivaran” (electronic resolution) portal for online redressal of taxpayers grievances related to refunds, ITRs, PAN, etc., as part of its initiative to reduce instances of harassment of the public when it comes to complaints related to the I-T department. The taxpayers can register their complaints through their personal computer systems. Once the grievance is registered, the system will also issue an acknowledgment number which can be quoted by the taxpayer for all his future communications with the taxman and also to track the progress of the complaint.

Nivaran

Nivaran portal was launched in July 2016 by Railway Ministry for redressal of service related grievance of serving and former Railway employees. Employees are able to lodge their grievances and also monitor the progress.