Thousands of people braved intermittent rains, long traffic queues on roads leading to the Civil Station and its muddy premises to meet Chief Minister Oommen Chandy at his second mass contact programme at the district headquarters in Kakkanad on Friday.
The Chief Minister reached the venue much ahead of time, apparently to evade the blockade by the activists of the Left Democratic Front (LDF).
By the time the Chief Minister arrived, the 5,000-seat pavilion erected on the northern side of the new Civil Station annexe was nearly filled with people who had registered their grievances with the district administration over the last fortnight.
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The programme got under way with a preface by the Port and Excise Minister K. Babu.
The Chief Minister, in his brief remarks, said the most significant outcome of the mass contact programme was that it helped bring about changes in rules standing in the way of people.
A statement from the district administration said the government had issued 45 orders after the last mass contact programme in 2011 to help people find easier remedies for their grievances.
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The programmes had helped reduce the distance between the government and the people, it said. The second phase of the programme saw a total of 5,892 online registrations. Solutions have been found by the district administration and the screening committee for all the registered complaints except 453 of them. A vast majority of those who attended the programme sought financial assistance from the Chief Minister’s Relief Fund. Complaints received by the district authority included those relating to transfer of registry of property and complications in land resurvey. Those who registered their complaints were given bar coded entrance passes to help control the proceedings.
The largest number of complaints (560) was registered by people in Kanayannur taluk.