MY CORNER grievance amitabh thakur

MY CORNER

grievance amitabh thakur

 

Better than Lokpal

The Grievance Redressal Bill 2011 sets forth an arrangement that is multilayered with well-defined structures and procedures, and may prove to be truly empowering

 

R

ecently we witnessed a lot of hoopla over a civil movement aimed primarily at passing a Lokpal Bill for more transparent, accountable and corruption-free governance. The movement and the Lokpal Bill took the entire nation by storm. The prime movers behind this movement insisted that a complete Act, covering different aspects of governance, be passed in one holistic package which they called the Jan Lokpal Bill. The government and many other civil societies had different opinions on this issue.

The government later introduced a bill in Parliament with an intention to prove its commitment to fighting corruption among government officers. The Bill, which goes by a long name- ‘The Right of Citizens for Time Bound Delivery of Goods and Services and Redressal of their Grievances Bill, 2011’, outlines the responsibilities of government departments towards citizens - and how someone who is denied the service due to them can take action. Anti-corruption crusader Anna Hazare had asked for this issue to be included in the Lokpal Bill. 

The Bill began by saying that every public authority or government department has to publish a citizen’s charter that clearly lists all the services that the department has to render along with timelines.  The citizen’s charter has to clearly explain the complaint redressal system for that office - like which officer in that department a complaint should be registered with. The Bill also provides for a “grievance redressal mechanism for non-compliance of citizen’s charter.”...READMORE