Bhubaneswar: Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik said that People are happy… peoples’ representatives are happy over the CMO visiting districts to listen grievances of people.
However he said that the Opposition members should not be unhappy because of political reasons.
Chief Minister Shri Patnaik made a statement on the floor of the House about CMO’s grievance redressal mechanism.
He said that for the state government, people come first, resolving peoples issues is a top priority and I will continue to do so in the best possible manner
The state government has always given top priority to peoples’ grievance redressal. Before Covid happened the CMO used to hold grievance hearing in Bhubaneswar. People from all over the state used to come and submit their grievances and there was a robust system to solve them. It gave hope to the people to reach out to the highest office of the state.
When Covid happened the CM grievance cell was closed due to restrictions for almost two years. It was restarted after normalcy returned. However, post Covid we noticed that the average number of grievances and people coming to grievance cell had come down.
Two years of Covid disruption caused dislocation in grievance redressal and I thought of reaching out to the people, by taking the CM Grievance Cell to the door steps of the people to cover all blocks and urban local bodies of the state in the shortest period possible. CM Grievance Cell is handled by the CMO and as per his directions officers from the CMO conduced decentralised grievances cell in all the districts of the state.
This mammoth exercise was carried out in more than 190 locations over a period of six months. Every day three to five venues were covered and in the process 57442 petitions were collected from the people, and as on date 43536 petitions have been resolved or disposed off. The entire exercise is transparent and technology driven.
All the petitions and the action taken reports and the stage of disposal are available in the janasunani portal. Legacy issues have been resolved in follow up meetings and within the next two to three months most of these historic issues pending for years together will be resolved. Petitioners are given written replies and phone calls are made on feedback through Mo Sarkar.
He said with all conviction that-this is one of the biggest and most effective peoples’ grievance redressal exercises carried out by any Government in the country.
He said that CM Grievance Cell is always handled by CMO and Ministers are not required to attend the same in Bhubaneswar. Once petitions are received, they are sent to concerned departments. Where is the issue of Ministers versus officers in this? Ministers have played a major role as head of the departments in resolving the petitions.
It’s teamwork at the highest level and is 3 professionally done in a democratic set up. The aim is to resolve people’s grievances in the best possible manner. If all these 57000 petitioners ( most are community petitions) had to come to Bhubaneswar to attend CM Grievance Cell how much money they would have had to spend in travel and stay, how much wage loss they would have had ??? All this has been saved by the CM Grievance Cell travelling to the door steps of people.
As regards chopper use, he clarified that it would have taken one and half years to do the same exercise by Road vis a vis by chopper. Every day conducting three to five meetings in different locations is humanly impossible within a window of 10 am to 3 pm which is convenient to people. In the last three and half years we have spent about Rupees 40 crores on chopper.
On an average Rupees 1 to 1.5 crore is spent on chopper every month. In the past six months when chopper was used intensively to reach out to the people, the average expenditure was the same around Rupees 1 to 1.5 crore per month. It’s completely false and misleading to say that excess expenditure has been made.
CM grievance cell has been conducted in all the constituencies in a very professional manner. This exercise was also used to explain to people about the schemes of the state Government, the ongoing projects in their areas and the funds sanctioned for the same. It was my specific instruction to give timelines for resolving grievances.
He sincerely appreciated the Ministers, the district administration, the CMO, the departments and all others involved in carrying out this mammoth exercise so professionally. Opposition members should be happy that so many grievances in their areas have also been resolved.
Chief Minister said that “he fails to understand as to how someone can oppose the solving of peoples grievances. Such opposition is anti-people and people will give them a befitting reply for such attitude. After all we are in public service and peoples’ grievances are our topmost priority”.