Law will ensure that grievances are addressed within a fixed time frame
If the proposed Lokpal Bill intends to address corruption in high places, the UPA government, as part of its anti-graft campaign, plans to introduce a Citizens Right to Grievance Redress Bill to complement it in the coming winter session of Parliament.
At a joint press conference, Rural Development Minister Jairam Ramesh and Minister of State for Personnel, Public Grievances and Pensions V. Narayanswamy stressed that it would go beyond the Delivery Mechanism laws now in operation in a few States.
Mr. Narayanswamy said the Grievance Redress Bill would address grievances related to public services and corruption in service delivery that afflicted the common man and that would not be addressed by the Lokpal Bill. Mr. Ramesh pointed out that while some people — an apparent reference to Team Anna — wanted corruption in high places as well as in service delivery to be included in the Lokpal Bill, the government's view was that it would be better to split it into two laws for more effective implementation.
The Grievance Redress Bill would cover the functioning of panchayats, the government, public sector units — and even the police — Mr. Narayanswamy said adding that this law, once enacted, would ensure that citizens' grievances would have to be addressed within a fixed time frame.
It would look into complaints of violation of the citizens' charter, which would be formulated by each government department, identify liabilities of public servants in case of default and impose penalties for failure to deliver services or redress grievances in a time-bound manner.
Mr. Narayanasamy said the architecture of the new Bill would ensure an appropriate decentralised and citizen-friendly mechanism to redress public grievances. “The citizens' charter will have to be defined by the authorities at various levels, including panchayats, municipalities, States and the Centre. For every authority, there will be a Grievance Redress Officer,” he said. The Bill would be put up on the website of the Department of Personnel for 21 days for people to give their comments.
The Bill, the Minister said, could be enacted as a Central legislation under the concurrent list and cover Central schemes and Central government departments. It would provide a platform to States to make a grievance redressal mechanism for State schemes and departments.
The Union government had evidently decided to give a strong push to the fight against corruption and hoped to introduce five new anti-graft laws, including the Lokpal Bill, Judicial Accountability Bill, Whistleblowers' Bill, and now the Citizens' Grievance Redress Bill in the winter session.
Mr. Ramesh pointed out that the UPA government's distinct contribution to governance was a set of rights-based laws relating to information, education and employment. The Citizens' Grievance Bill was a step in the same direction, as it would empower the citizen to get his everyday grievances addressed, he said.
Keywords: Lokpal issue, anti-graft campaign, Citizens Right to Grievance Redress Bill, winter session
We have gone through the draft of 'Citizens Right to Grievance redress Bill 2011' uploaded by DARPG for public feedback on their website . In first sight there is nothing new. This is a mixture of Redressal of Public Grievances Rules, 1998, Insurance Ombudsman, Banking Ombudsman, already introduced Grievance redress mechanism in house that is DAPRG and IGMS etc. by the all Public Authorities/ Regulators and Consumer protection and National consumer disputes redressal act which is called 'Consumer Protection Act 1986' and Right to information Act 2005 also. All these became white elephant to our Nation. For example Consumer Protection Act was introduced to redress the consumers grievance within 45 days but it takes 10 to 15 years upto the level of national commission. Right to information act takes time to get the information approx one year and FAA favour to CPIO in all cases . Insurance Ombudsman, Banking Ombudsman and in house Grievances Redress mechanism also favour their GRO and Institutions. Hence a common man ultimately has no choice whether to go to the court case or lose his complaint. Therefore I think there is no need to any new bill for futher upbringing to white elephant. First our Government should try to eliminates the corruption in Judiciary and open fast track courts to reduce the court cases by 75% upto 2012 as already committed by our Hon,able Prime minister. If we are able to decide the court cases within 6 months I assure 90% corruption will be eliminated automatically.
All these proposed Bills are steps in the right direction to redress the grievance of the Citizens. If punishment is stipulated for the defaulting official as in RTI, Act, the Grievance Redressal Machinery will deliver services . Unless Team Anna accords its approval to these Bills and directs our MPs to pass these Bills , how the UPA Government could pass these Bills.
As soon as the Citizen's Grievance Bill is ready it should be put on Public Domain so that people can know the truth of what the Govt. agents are posing. It has to be tested for the purpose of its effectiveness.
Under the intense pressure exerted by the Anti-corruption agitation the government is finally forced to provide a better deal to its citizens. We will have to keep a close watch on the fine print and implementation. "For every authority, there will be a Grievance Redress Officer" --- does he reports to an independent organisation or is he a government lackey.
Things will not stop at Lokpal, grievance redress, judicial accountability, ..... lot more is in the offing. People have got know they have a say and politicians cannot take them for granted anymore. With time, electoral reforms, police reforms, judicial reforms, education reforms, healthcare reforms, .......and a couple of years down the line and we will be in a totally new environment and a totally new INDIA.
Sir, I have been commenting in my earlier comments on Anna hazare's fast and team anna's various criticisms against the present UPA govt, this urgent need for the above mentioned public redressal system to pinpoint the various corrupt practices of all the central & state govts' depts prior to setting up a strong Lokpal. They have not come up so far with any, nor did the great Mr Advaniji in his present yatra! Now the present UPA Govt itself has proposed to bring this system both in the central and state govts. Well & good.We, the Public are very much satisfied that things will improve as we could first bring to notice what are the various existing corrupt practices to be remedied to enable us to go before the LOKPAL?
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