In Bundelkhand,Centre gets MNREGS key

Not only this,the complainant is regularly informed about the progress of his complaint redressal each day through SMS (wherever applicable),thereby also making the concerned government officials accountable.

Central government officials came across this system during the meeting of the inter-sectoral convergence with MNREGS called in Jhansi recently.

Impressed,B K Sinha,Secretary,Union Rural Development Ministry,personally tested the system by lodging a complaint and was surprised to get a response within minutes through SMS giving him details about his complaint number and also the officer to whom the complaint has been forwarded.

“In coming future,mobiles will virtually replace computers and we found that Jhansi administration has made very effective use of it in redressing public grievances. Even if a district collector is very efficient,each and every man cannot reach him personally but through this system,their complaints can reach him as well as the concerning officer very quickly,” Sinha said.

“The system appealed to us very much and we want to adopt it as a national model for MNREGA. We have asked the district team to develop another prototype for us and have also invited them to Delhi to make a presentation,” he added.

Jhansi DM Raj Shekhar said,“We wanted to have a public redressal system which is easy to use,is quick and sets accountability. We launched this system in June 2009 and to date,we have been successful in redressing around 8,000 complaints of the total 9,000 received. We have made our presentation before state authorities for use of the system in various departments and now Central government officials have called us.”

Shekhar said the system has not only eliminated the role of middlemen but has also made the officers concerned accountable as each call is recorded,the complaint is put online,an automatic SMS is generated with a unique complaint number,which is not only sent to the complainant but also to the officer to whom the complaint is forwarded. The officer concerned is given the mobile or landline number of the complainant so that he can directly get in touch with him.

While the follow-up of the complaint is done each day,once every Thursday,a review meeting is called at the district administration to discuss the list of pending complaints for the week.

This system of public redressal has been recently awarded NASSCOM Social Innovation Honour 2010 for Information and Communication Technology- led innovations in e-governance in Mumbai on February 10.

The UP government plans to introduce the system across the state while Uttar Pradesh Housing and Development Board and the state’s Urban Development Department have expressed their willingness to adopt this system.

How the system works
* Step 1: Any citizen can call on a toll-free number to register his or her complaint. Each call is recorded
* Step 2: The officer in the control room talks to the officer concerned and the complaint is given a unique number.
* Step 3: Each complaint is divided in three categories i.e. A for urgent,to be disposed of within 24 hours,B complaints,to be disposed within 72 hrs,and C complaints to be disposed within 7 days.
* Step 4: The information is fed in the computer and the automatic SMS is generated through with both the complainant and the concerning officers are informed about each other as well as the complaint number.
*4 Step 5: While the data about the pending complaint with the individual officer,department is made online each day,on every Thursday review meeting of all the officers with pending complaints is called at the Collectorate.

Data available with Jhansi District administration as on February 22,2010
* The Jan Suvidha Kendra in Jhansi has so far received 9346 complaints (since June 2009)
* The number of complaints disposed of: 8746
* Of the 600 pending complaints,while 4 are of type B,591 are of type C (remaining were found fake)