The City police on Monday had a tough time handling10,000 people, mostly elderly men and women, who gathered at Chief Minister’s Grievance Cell here to get their grievances redressed ‘instantly’.
With bureaucratic red-tapism preventing people from accessing government welfare schemes at the district level, people are rushing to the State Capital with the hope to be heard by top government officials here. Many people are in delusion that Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik will hear them personally.
Discrimination in selection of beneficiaries at village level on political ground has added to the woes.
Even though Chief Minister Mr. Patnaik do not attend the Grievance Cell, people in thousands rush with petitions to the office in his absence. Between 2009 and 2014, the Chief Minister’s Grievance Cell has received total number of 47,750 petitions and disposed 39,651 cases.
The cell received around 7000 petitions per year from 2009 to 2012. But it shot up by double in 2013 during which as many as 14883 petitions were received by the cell. With reports of some cheaters allegedly collecting huge sums of money from gullible villagers for submission of their application in the cell reaching the Chief Minister’s Office, the latter on Monday issued a clarification stating that people need not come to Bhubaneswar to submit their grievance petition.
