Raichur: R. Suresh, Principal Secretary, Department of Personnel and Administrative Reforms, has said that the district-level public grievances cell and the food security grievances cell have become defunct owing to the poor response from the people.

Not many petitions

Addressing presspersons here on Thursday, he said not many petitions were filed with these cells in the district because of lack of awareness among the people about their activities.

He said that the Deputy Commissioner is the nodal officer who handled the petitions. Recently, the Government appointed the Chief Executive Officer of the zilla panchayat as the additional nodal officer of the food security grievances cell in the district.

Reply

Both nodal officers should respond to the public grievances. They should reply within 15 days after receiving petitions, Mr. Suresh said.

Mr. Suresh said that 96 petitions were filed with the food security grievances cell in the past six months. Fifty per cent of the petitions had been disposed of.

Suspended

Mr. Suresh said that the nodal officer concerned had suspended the permission given to two fair price shops and imposed penalty on 49 errant fair price shops. However, there was poor response from the public.

Mr. Suresh said that he received only three petitions on Thursday even after adequate publicity about the importance of grievances cell.

`Create awareness'

Prior to this, only 27 cases were pending with the cell. He had asked the Deputy Commissioner and the Chief Executive Officer to create awareness among the people, Mr. Suresh said.

The Department of Police received 226 petitions in the past six months.

The department had disposed of 160 petitions, he said.

Mr. Suresh said that he had directed the officials of both the cells to convene meetings at the hobli-level twice a month, particularly on the first and third Saturday. They should solve the problems faced by the people immediately, he said.

Complaints

Expressing concern over the functioning of the officials at the Raichur City Municipal Council office with regard to public grievances, Mr. Suresh said there were complaints that the municipality was not responding properly.

Most of the petitions received by it were not being attended to for long, he said.

Speedy disposal

He had directed the authorities concerned for the speedy disposal of petitions, he said.

He said that he had directed the Deputy Commissioner to go through the public grievances published in newspapers and solve them on priority.

Printer friendly page  
Send this article to Friends by E-Mail