We are learning, open to criticism: CM

Admitting that mistakes will happen, Kejriwal said he would ensure that the AAP-led government would try to steer clear of making mistakes that cannot be reversed.
“We are open to learning, which is why we are open to criticism from you (media). If we become insensitive to the criticism, it would mean we have failed,’’ he said.

He referred to janta durbar on Saturday to illustrate how the AAP government had learnt from its mistake and decided to streamline the redressal system. Claiming that the public grievance commission had become a quasi-judicial body which only passed orders, the chief minister said, “We will have to decided what to do with it.”

The janta durbar, held by the AAP to hear and solve people’s grievances, had ended in complete chaos. Kejriwal left the meeting halfway after a group of almost 20,000 people threatened to physically swamp the chief minister and his Cabinet colleagues.

On service-level agreement (SLA) grievance mechanism for delivery of services in a time-bound manner, the CM said, “The SLA will come under Jan Lokpal, whereby repeated violations over a time period could be deemed as a violation by an official and would be seen as corruption.”

The Delhi government has constituted a committee consisting of the chief secretary and the secretaries of Law, Finance, Home and Urban Development departments to deliberate and create a draft Bill to replace the existing Delhi Lokayukta Act. The draft Bill is likely to be ready by January 15.

BJP slams AAP’s decision to stop janta durbar

New Delhi: The BJP on Monday criticised the Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal’s decision to not hold any more janta durbars.

Acknowledging that the thought of holding a public hearing of people’s problems was a noble idea, party spokesperson Nirmala Sitharaman said it was certainly not a “novel” idea. “Janta durbars have been held by several governments of both the Congress and the BJP,” she said. It was called Swagat in Gujarat.

Pointing to MP CM Shivraj Singh Chouhan who has been hearing public grievances, she alleged, “The AAP is not prepared to meet people.”

Sitharaman said Kejriwal’s janta durbar could not be managed well as it was “not done with adequate thought”. “It should not happen that people who come with one grievance go back with two as they fail to get heard,” she said.