Over 300 public grievances, including those related to non-adherence of the ongoing lockdown and request for rescue from foreign countries, have been received by the central government under a recently-launched mechanism, officials said on Wednesday.
Out of the total 336 public grievances, 28 were on "lockdown not adhered to", 25 were "requests for rescue from foreign countries" and 14 were related to "quarantine", they said, citing an official data.
A total of nine were related to "inadequate facilities in hospitals", seven were "examination-related", six were "stuck at some place due to lockdown", five "essential supplies not being provided", four were related to "harassment" and one was on "problem in donating to the PM-CARES Fund", the officials said.
There were 101 suggestions received by the government and 136 public grievances fell under "others" categories, they said.
Giving further details of grievances related to non-compliance of lockdown, an official said, people claimed that "private sector employees (were) still being called at work" and also "postal department (was) calling employees to work".
He said grievances on "police harassment" and "people getting evicted from colleges" were under the harassment category.
Suggestions like "claiming to have found cure" and "request for financial aid" were received as public grievances, the official said.
Grievances like "garbage not being collected" and "supply of basic necessities affected" were also received by the central government, he said.
Giving details of the public grievances related to inadequate facilities in hospitals, the officials said people claimed that "isolation wards were overcrowded", "masks and sanitiser not available" and hospitals were "not equipped to test patients".
Minister of State for Personnel Jitendra Singh on Wednesday also launched the Department of Administrative Reforms and Public Grievances' (DARPG) national monitoring dashboard on COVID-19 grievances.
The national monitoring dashboard was developed and implemented at https://darpg.gov.in where COVID-19 related grievances received in the Central Public Grievances Redress and Monitoring System (CPGRAMS) with all ministries/ departments and states/union territories are monitored on a priority basis by a technical team of DARPG.
The dashboard was developed by DARPG in pursuance of the recommendations of the empowered group of officers constituted under the Disaster Management Act 2005 on 'public grievances and suggestions' to ensure timely implementation of coronavirus response activities, according to a statement issued by the Personnel Ministry.
Speaking on the occasion, Singh said that it is the endeavour of the Modi government to ensure timely redressal of COVID-19 grievances and directions have been issued to all ministries/departments to prioritise these grievances and provide redressal in a period of three days.
The minister said that he had personally reviewed the status of 262 grievances of the central government and 83 grievances of state governments received on day one, and directed officers in DARPG to pursue with line ministries and state governments.
On the first day of the launch, the national monitoring dashboard received 43 grievances of the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare, 31 grievances of the Ministry of External Affairs and 26 grievances of the Ministry of Finance, the statement said.
Singh complimented the secretary, DARPG and the team of officials for launching the national COVID-19 monitoring dashboard, saying that it was a feather in the department's cap that within two days the national monitor was operationalised and 62 citizen's grievances were redressed.
He reiterated the government's trust in the effectiveness of the 'team DARPG' to handle COVID-19 grievance redressal.
Secretary DARPG, Kshtrapati Shivaji, Additional Secretary, DARPG, V Srinivas, Joint Secretaries Jaya Dubey and N B S Rajput along with senior officials of the department participated in the launch through video conferencing.
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