Public Administration and Citizen Centric Governance

“Today, I would like to make a request to the bureaucracy of India, to every government employee, be it in the State Government or the Central Government. The country has put a lot of trust in you, work while maintaining that trust. In your service, the basis of your decisions should be only the interest of the country” Prime Minister Narendra Modi. 

As an active participant in India’s Governance models for the pursuit of Next Generation Administrative Reforms and Citizen Centric Governance, I seek to present the transformation in Governance models witnessed in 2019-2024 period. There is much that India’s governance models can offer the world – meritocracy, digitalisation practices, citizen centricity, constitutional morality and a strong foundation of the civil services. 

Introduction

Under the visionary leadership of Prime Minister Modi, the Governance landscape of India has radically changed in scale, scope and learning paradigms. India has succeeded in transforming technologically obsolete institutions into modern day digital institutions which benefit millions of Indians. Today India’s rural country side has changed - banking Correspondents, e-Mitras and common service centers have bridged the gap between internet poor and internet rich. As India celebrates its Amrit Kaal period, the Prime Minister has given a clarion call for adoption of Next Generation Reforms by bridging the gap between government and citizens. This vision of Next Generation administrative reforms of the Prime Minister has been diligently translated into reality by DARPG. Secretariat Reforms, Special Campaigns, Benchmarking of Governance and Services, Redressal of Public Grievances & Improving Service Delivery, recognizing meritocracy and replication of good governance practices form the core of India’s good governance model. It is with a great sense of pride, that I must narrate the technology adoption in the Central Secretariat with ASO’s/ SO’s/ Under Secretaries undergoing reskilling in Emerging Technologies using i-GOT Mission Karmayogi. The Digital March of the Central Secretariat has had significant spill over effects to Attached/ Subordinate/ Autonomous bodies, all of whom adopted e-Governance practices. State Secretariats adopted e-Office and several services were operationalised as e-Services. Strong Digital Platforms formed the bulwark of the Digital Public Infrastructure push of India in the G20 deliberations as a global public good. Technology impact in governance was most visible in Jammu & Kashmir which provided an all-time high of 1080 e-Services, adopted e-Office saving crores of rupees from abolition of the Darbar movement, developed the JK-IGRAMS, convened regional conferences and national conferences on e- Governance.

Maximum Governance – Minimum Government

India’s governance model in the years 2019-2023, has undergone radical reforms. e-Governance has simplified a citizen’s interface with Government, brought government and citizens’ closer and enabled benchmarking of service quality. The Central government’s e-governance models have benefitted in bringing transparency and openness to government processes. The widespread adoption of e-Office version 7.0 has created paperless offices in all 75 Ministries/Departments in the Central Secretariat 89 per cent files being handled as e-files. In 2022, CPGRAMS helped redress 18 lac Public Grievances. The organisational reforms coupled with significant reforms in Personnel Administration like Mission Karmayogi, Lateral Recruitment, accelerated promotion policies, regional conferences for replication of good governance practices, recognizing excellence in public administration by scaling up the scheme for PM’s Awards for Excellence in Public Administration represent a paradigm shift in India’s governance models. New India’s strong institutions are best symbolized by adoption of e-governance practices. The best manifestation of “Maximum Governance–Minimum Government” policy is a “Digitally Empowered Citizen” and a “Digitally Transformed Institution”.

Prime Minister’s Awards for Excellence in Public Administration 2022, Scaling up Civil Services Day 2023 and National Good Governance Webinar Series

India observes 21 April every year as “Civil Services Day”, the day is marked as an occasion for civil servants to rededicate themselves to citizens and renew their commitment to public service and excellence in work. The theme of the 16th Civil Services Day on 21 April 2023 was “Viksit Bharat – Empowering Citizens and Reaching the Last Mile.” The Hon’ble Vice President of India inaugurated the Civil Services Day events on 20th April. The Conference deliberations were held during the 2 Plenary sessions-‘Empowering Citizens-Leveraging Public Digital Platforms’, ‘Promoting Circular Economy for Sustainable Development’ and 4 Breakaway sessions ‘Piped Water for all–Jal Jeevan Mission’, ‘Holistic Health care for All – Health & Wellness Centres’, ‘Improving Quality of Education–Improving Outcomes through Vidya Samiksha Kendras’, ‘Aspirational Blocks Program – Reaching the Last Mile’ on April 20, 2023. The Conference was attended by more than 25000 delegates, with officials attending physically in Vigyan Bhawan and through the web-casting of the event in virtual mode. This was the highest ever participation in Civil Services Day events. The 16th Civil Services Day 2023 was a landmark event.

The Hon’ble Prime Minister conferred the Prime Minister’s Awards for Excellence in Public Administration 2022 instituted to recognize the efforts and exceptional work done by the civil servants to 15 Award Winners. The 2022 PM’s Awards were awarded for Innovations in Central Government, State Governments and District Level innovations. In the Priority Programs, District performances were evaluated for Har Ghar Jal Yojana, Health and Wellness Centres, Samagra Shiksha and Aspirational Districts Program.

Hon’ble Prime Minister personally reviewed the scheme and the restructuring of the Scheme was undertaken as per his directions to ensure maximum participation with the focus on empowering citizens and reaching the last mile with a saturation approach. In 2022, an all-time high number of nominations were received from States/UTs - 743 District Collectors submitted 2520 nominations for PM’s Awards 2022. This was 97 per cent of the total districts of the country who participated in the PM’s Awards 2022 Scheme. Committees at various levels - Screening Committees chaired by Additional Secretaries, Expert Committee chaired by Secretary, DARPG screened the applications based on the parameters of the scheme, presentations by District Collectors and other Head of Departments, around 5.5 lakh citizen feedback calls and ‘on the spot’ study conducted by two member - teams of the rank of Directors/Deputy Secretaries for all shortlisted initiatives. An empowered committee chaired by Cabinet Secretary made the final selections from 32 shortlisted nominations. Of these 15 nominations received the PM’s awards for Excellence in Public Administration 2022. The award-winning nominations were also presented in the exhibition at Vigyan Bhavan.

Amongst the PM’s Awards winners 2022 in the Innovations Category are:

Innovations – Centre

1. National COVID-19 Vaccination Programme of Ministry of Health & Family Welfare- COVID- 19 vaccines were made available free of cost at all Government Covid Vaccination Centres (CVCs). The programme was built on four strong pillars that included a structured governance mechanism, ramping up of vaccine production, efficient logistics management and implementation strategies for equitable vaccine administration and effective communication strategy for managing the infodemic generated vaccine hesitancy and eagerness.

2. PM GatiShakti National Master Plan of Department for Promotion of Industry and Internal Trade to provide a GIS enabled platform to facilitate planning and decision making for creation of next generation infrastructure and seamless multimodal connectivity for Ease of Living and Doing Business.

Innovations State

1. Mission Youth an initiative of Government of the state of Jammu and Kashmir to provide a vibrant medium for youth engagement and empowerment in Jammu and Kashmir. The innovation brought youth at the centre of Youth Policy, where the local youth provided inputs for initiatives and became a part of the transformative schemes.

2. State Organ & Tissue Transplant Organization (SOTTO) of the state of Gujarat has developed a strong ecosystem, with the State Organ & Tissue Transplant Organization (SOTTO) Gujarat at its pivot, to ensure that the most vulnerable and underprivileged have access to prohibitively expensive life-saving treatment.

Innovations District

1. Operation Parivartan- Eradication of illicit liquor of Solapur District, Maharashtra for complete eradication of illicit liquor though rehabilitation of people involved in it. This initiative has positively affected the proportion of incidents of crime, social tensions, and domestic violence associated with illicit liquor.

2. Project “SANVARDHAN” (VOCAL FOR LOCAL) of Rampur District, Uttar Pradesh which aimed to tackle the issue of malnutrition in a mission mode. Deriving inspiration from the vision of Hon’ble PM, ‘Project Sanvardhan’ was started to fight malnutrition by developing multipronged Strategy focusing on preparation of ‘Poshan Kit’. Locally produced raw material, aligned with the Prime Minister's motto of “Vocal for Local” is processed at local processing centre for the preparation of ‘Poshan Kits’ which has led to increase in income levels of farmers.

3. New Age Learning Center (NALC) of Changlang District, Arunachal Pradesh wherein children of various age group are provided with fun and interactive learning under one single roof with special emphasis to provide end to end learning solutions at single delivery point by integrating the features of library, motivation Centre, personality development space, skill training Centre and fun learning unit to make the learning more comprehensive as well interesting at the same time.

The winners of PM’s awards in 4 District Priority Sector Programs were as follows:

1. Har Ghar Jal Yojana - Under this category, 2 awards were presented to the districts of Kancheepuram, Tamil Nadu and Burhanpur, Madhya Pradesh.

2. Promoting quality education with an equitable and inclusive classroom environment through Samagra Shiksha - Under this category, 2 awards were presented to the districts of Chitrakoot, Uttar Pradesh and Mehsana, Gujarat.

3. Promoting Swasth Bharat through Health & Wellness Centres -   Under this category, 2 awards were presented to the districts of Latur, Maharashtra and Anakapalli, Andhra Pradesh

4. Aspirational Districts Programme - Under this category, 2 awards were presented to the districts of Baramulla, UT of Jammu and Kashmir and Gumla, Jharkhand.

The DARPG has made significant efforts for dissemination and replication of the Award-winning nominations. This was in accordance with Prime Minister Modi’s vision of organising experience sharing sessions by the award winners to a larger Nation-wide audience. The National Good Governance Webinar Series conceptualised in 2022-23 presented 24 nominations in 12 monthly webinars in which 15000 officials participated. The PM’s Awards winners presented in the National Good Governance Webinar Series included Sakala of Government of Karnataka, e-Seva of Government of Andhra Pradesh, Sickle Cell Anemia Control Program of Government of Gujarat, Making Medicines Affordable in Chittorgarh district, Rajasthan, Holistic Development through One District-One Product Scheme in Siddharth Nagar district Uttar Pradesh, Promoting Jan Bhagidari in Poshan Abhiyan in Asifabad district Telangana, Prajavani Janahita of Siricilla district Telangana, Sarkar Aapke Dwar of Changlang district Arunachal Pradesh, Reviving Sasur Khaderi of Government of Uttar Pradesh, Canal Top Solar Power Project of Government of Gujarat, NDMC for Seamless End to End Delivery of Services without Human Intervention of NCT Delhi, Seva Sindhu Portal of Government of Karnataka, River Linking Project of Jalgaon district Maharashtra, Innovative Participatory Drinking Water Approach in Rural Areas of Gujarat etc. The Themes covered included Improving Public Service Delivery, Initiatives in Health Sector, Aspirational District Programs, Redressal of Public Grievances, Environment, Innovations, Jal/ Water Management, Namami Gange. The response to the National Good Governance Webinars indicated the enthusiasm and interest that the series had generated amongst District Collectors/ State Governments in the pursuit of good governance practices.

A compendium of the National Good Governance Webinar Series 2022-23 was released by the Hon’ble Vice President of India on 20th April, 2023 in the inaugural session of Civil Services Day events 2023. In 2023, DARPG has curated the weekly Sansad TV Television series Abinav Pahal in which award winning nominations are presented by the Award Winners. An innovation portal https://darpg- innovation.nic.in has been launched to document the award winning nominations. 

National Conferences on e-Governance and National e-Governance Awards

Government implements the Awards Scheme for National Awards for e-Governance. This Scheme is recognised as amongst the most competitive and prestigious digital governance awards schemes in the country. In the year 2023, 425 nominations were received out of which 16 nominations were conferred the National e-Governance Awards. The National Annual e-Governance Conferences were held at Mumbai in 2020, Hyderabad in Jan, 2022, Katra in November 2022. This year the 26th National e- Governance Conference was held at Indore, Madhya Pradesh on August 24-25, 2023.

The key takeaways from the 26th National e-Governance Conference were the following:

i. The Conference drew inspiration from the words of Prime Minister Modi who stressed on the role of technology in making governance and justice delivery systems reach the poorest of the poor, the marginalized and women living in the hinterland. The vision of Prime Minister of India’s techade can be realized through a vigorous and all pervasive digital governance push.

ii. Closer synergy amongst researchers, academia, industry and start-ups in the field of e-Governance is the way forward for India to be an Atma Nirbhar Nation. The Vision India@2047 on Governance is truly e-Vision India@2047 marked by saturation and benchmarking of high quality e-Services reaching out to the last man in the queue for service delivery in the true spirit of Antyodaya, focus on young policy makers and creating interactive fora between academia and start- ups.

iii. Open Digital Platforms are tremendous force multipliers, and critical for providing affordable, inter-operable technology to India’s citizens. Digital Governance can enable massive reach and benefits in the conduct of Special Campaigns aimed at reducing pendency and institutionalisation of Swachhata with the objective of providing good governance.

The National e-Governance Conferences have had significant spillover effects into the e- Governance in States/Union Territories where they were held. The biggest transformation was witnessed in Jammu & Kashmir where the number of e-Services were scaled up from 15 in 2019 to 225 in 2022 to 1080 in 2023. This represented a remarkable achievement. The dissemination of the award winning nominations through the National e-Governance Webinar Series is a new initiative of DARPG.

Regional Conferences

DARPG regularly conducts Regional Conferences for replication of good governance practices and e-Governance practices. In 2022, Regional Conferences were held at Srinagar, Benguluru, Itanagar, Mumbai, and Bhopal. Regional Conferences attended by 500 officers/ conference have helped in presenting the State’s best governance practices in addition to PM’s Award winning nominations. DARPG has also commenced curating the Regional e-Governance conferences which have enabled in dissemination of the best e-Governance conferences. The Regional Conferences will enable the creation of fully digital public institutions, strengthen linkages between stakeholders, strengthen state portals and service portals for digital empowerment. The movement for saturation of e-services across the Nation has been significantly strengthened in this period.

Good Governance Index 2021

DARPG launched the Good Governance Index (GGI) framework to gauge the performance of the States/UTs following the recommendations of the Group of Secretaries on Governance and published the ranking for States and UTs for 2019 and 2021. The GGI framework assesses the state of Governance across the States and UTs and ranks States/UTs. The objective is to create a tool which can be used uniformly across the States/UTs to assess the impact of various interventions taken up by the Central and State Governments/UTs. The GGI 2019 encompassed 10 Sectors and 50 Indicators and GGI 2021 encompassed 10 sectors and 58 indicators. Each sector carries equal weightage and is composed of indicators carrying different weightages. The sectors of GGI 2020-21 are: 1) Agriculture and Allied Sectors, 2) Commerce & Industries, 3) Human Resource Development, 4) Public Health, 5.) Public Infrastructure & Utilities, 6) Economic Governance, 7) Social Welfare & Development, 8) Judicial & Public Security, 9) Environment, and 10) Citizen-Centric Governance. The GGI 2020-21 categorizes States and UTs into four categories, i.e., (i) Other States – Group A; (ii) Other States – Group B; (iii) North-East and Hill States; and (iv) Union Territories. GGI helps assess the status of governance in States & UTs. Gujarat, Maharashtra and Goa to the composite score of 10 sectors under GGI 2021 assessment. Uttar Pradesh has shown a 8.9 percent increase over the GGI 2019 performance. The GGI 2021 says 20 States have improved their composite GGI scores over the GGI 2019 scores. This indicates that the overall governance in the States of India is moving in the positive direction.

District Good Governance Index

District being a basic unit in field administration and governance, implementing various programmes and innovative projects for the well-being of citizens, measuring their performance becomes important for proper assessment and planning which will lead to the development of the districts and region as a whole. The District Good Governance Index (DGGI) represents next generation administrative reform in benchmarking governance at district level. This Index is prepared after extensive stakeholder consultations for benchmarking governance in all the districts of a State on a number of indicators under different sectors. The ranking brings healthy competition amongst districts to address existing gaps, plan to bridge these gaps and aid decision making tools.

District Good Governance Index of Jammu & Kashmir — The Department of Administrative Reforms and Public Grievances have conceptualized, formulated and released the DGGI for Jammu & Kashmir in consultation with the Government of Jammu & Kashmir. India’s first DGGI was designed and developed for the UT of Jammu and Kashmir by Centre for Good Governance, Hyderabad as knowledge partner was launched by the Home Minister of India on 22 January 2022. The DGGI is a framework comprising of performance under ten governance sectors having 58 indicators with 116 data points. The DGGI helps to identify the impact of various government interventions at District-level and provides a futuristic roadmap for improving District-level governance and service delivery with targeted interventions.

District Good Governance Index of Gujarat — The DGGI for Gujarat provides significant data insights to the State of Gujarat and other stakeholders in their efforts to address existing gaps, plan to bridge these gaps and aid as decision making tool. The ranking is expected to bring about healthy competition amongst districts in the quest to provide citizen centric administration and governance. DGGI Gujarat is first for any big state of India, as the Index benchmarks governance in all the 33 Districts of Gujarat on 65 indicators under 10 sectors. The DGGI Gujarat was released by Chief Minister, Gujarat in the valedictory Session of the three day ‘10th Chintan Shibir’ – a brainstorming session for senior and junior government officials of Gujarat – at Kevadia in Narmada district of Gujarat on 21st May, 2023.

District Good Governance Index of Arunachal Pradesh — DGGI Arunachal Pradesh is first DGGI for a north-east State of India. The Index benchmarks governance in all 25 districts of Arunachal Pradesh on 65 indicators under 8 sectors. The ranking brings about healthy competition amongst Districts and provide guidance to the State Government as well as District administration of Arunachal Pradesh in their efforts to address existing gaps, plan to bridge these gaps and aid as decision making tool. The District Good Governance Index of Arunachal Pradesh was released on 8th June 2023.

Good Governance Week

The Nation-wide weekly celebrations of Good Governance were organized by DARPG in 2021 and 2022. The hallmark event of Good Governance Week 2022 was a weeklong Nation-wide campaign ‘Prashasan Gaon Ki Ore 2022’ from December 19th-24th, 2022, aimed at redressal public grievances and improving service delivery. The second nationwide campaign ‘Prashasan Gaon Ki Ore’ was launched on December 19, 2022 by Dr Jitendra Singh, Minister of State for Personnel, PG and Pensions, in an event attended by District Collectors, Chief Secretaries/Additional Chief Secretaries and AR Secretaries of 36 States/ UT’s and Senior Officials from Central Ministries/Departments. During the Prashasan Gaon Ki Ore Campaign District Collectors organised special camps/events at Tehsil Headquarters/Panchayat Samitis to resolve public grievances and for improved service delivery. The campaign witnessed redressal of over 54 lakh public grievances, disposal of over 314 lakh service delivery applications and documentation of 982 innovations in governance by the Districts of all States and UTs. The campaign was monitored centrally on a real time basis through a Dashboard created for this purpose on the ‘Prashasan Gaon Ki Ore’ Portal.

The National e-Services Delivery Assessment 2021

The National e-Governance Service Delivery Assessment (NeSDA) was undertaken to boost the e-Government endeavours and drive digital government excellence. The study Report assesses States, Union Territories (UTs), and focus Central Ministries on the effectiveness of e-Governance service delivery. NeSDA helps the respective governments to improve their delivery of citizen centric services and shares best practices across the country for all States, UTs and Central Ministries to emulate.

The Department has undertaken NeSDA 2019 and 2021. The preparation of NeSDA 2023 are currently in progress. In assessment of State portals, Kerala remains a front runner and the progress made by Tamil Nadu, Jammu & Kashmir and Uttar Pradesh in NeSDA 2021 is commendable. In Service portals, Rajasthan, Punjab, Jammu & Kashmir and Meghalaya has topped the rankings. All States/ UT’s have shown improvements in the promotion of integrated service portals and the number of services being offered on their State portals. India’s e-Governance policies have shown improvements and citizen satisfaction levels have risen. In many ways Technology has succeeded in Bringing Government and Citizens closer. The NeSDA 2021 report assessed 1400 e-Services across States and UT’s and reported that India’s e-Services had grown by 60 percent in the period 2019-2021. 69 percent of the mandatory e-services have been delivered by States/ UT’s in 2021 up from 48 percent in NeSDA 2019. 74 percent of the respondents of the nation-wide citizen survey are satisfied/ very satisfied with the e-services.

DARPG is collaborating with States and Union Territories to ensure timely implementation of the recommendations of the NeSDA 2021 for rolling out of all mandatory e-services by States and Union Territories in a time bound manner. The DARPG is also coordinating with States and Union Territories to strengthen the State Portals and Service Portals to enhance the ease of living of citizens. The Objectives of the monitoring/ collaboration are to adopt the 56 mandatory services and to saturate e- service delivery by all the States/UTs. DARPG has designed the NeSDA-Way Froward, Status of Implementation Dashboard in line with the focus areas of e-Governance. While Central and State Governments are taking utmost care and importance to improve their service delivery through digital channels, this enhanced dashboard aims to create the baseline for online service delivery and build an inclusive digital ecosystem. The monthly reports institutionalise the nation’s endeavours for improved delivery of e-services and prepare States/UTs for NeSDA 2023. The objectives of the monthly progress are saturation of e-services, to promote faceless and suo-moto entitlement-based delivery of services, identification of bottlenecks in the implementation of recommendations process and dissemination of best practices. Starting from March 2023, monthly editions for the months of April, May, June, July and August have been released.

Effective Redressal of Public Grievances

Prime Minister Modi has said “Effective Redressal of Public Grievances” is one of the most important aspects of Indian democracy, accorded highest priority to the subject with focus on citizen engagement. The Prime Minister’s commitment to an effective grievance redressal mechanism emanated from his early years in Government as Chief Minister Gujarat when he launched the SWAGAT portal in 2003. The SWAGAT portal of Gujarat celebrated its 20th anniversary in 2023, was a pioneer in introducing citizen interaction, categorisation of grievances and effective redressal of public grievances.

The Department of Administrative Reforms and Public Grievances is the nodal agency in respect of policy initiatives on public grievance redressal mechanisms and citizen centric initiatives. The grievances received by the Department of Administrative Reforms and Public Grievances were forwarded to the concerned Ministries/Departments/State Governments/UTs who deal with the substantive functions linked with the grievance for redress under intimation to the complainant. Under CPGRAMS 7.0 grievances land directly at the last mile grievance officer level. The Department of Administrative Reforms and Public Grievances has issued guidelines to all Ministries/Departments to set up effective grievance redressal systems for effective redressal of public grievances. There exist several digital portals in Government of India for effective redressal of public grievances – CPGRAMS, Rail Madad and e-Nivaran. All Ministries/Departments have designated nodal Grievance Redressal Officers for effective redressal of grievances. Periodic reviews by the Hon’ble Prime Minister have enabled ushering-in of transformational reforms in CPGRAMS as represented by the 10 Step reform program of CPGRAMS launched in 2022.

The implementation of CPGRAMS 10-Step reforms has resulted in a linear increase in the number of public grievances being redressed every month to over 1 lac cases and reduction in timelines for disposal to 16 days in central ministries/ departments for the past 14 months. Today the CPGRAMS portal has mapped 0.97 lac Grievance Redressal Officers, and 20 lac citizens have registered themselves to file nearly 20 lac grievances/ year. Considerable success was achieved in effective redressal of public grievances during the COVID-19 pandemic with launch of the COVID-19 Grievance Redressal Dashboard and portal on the CPGRAMS portal. This was a period in which 1.25 lac COVID-19 public grievances were redressed with an average disposal period of 1.45 days.

Centralised Public Grievance Redress and Monitoring System (CPGRAMS) is an online platform available to the citizens 24x7 to lodge their grievances to the public authorities on any subject related to service delivery. It is a single portal connected to all the Ministries/Departments of Government of India and States. Every Ministry and States have role-based access to this system. CPGRAMS is also accessible to the citizens through standalone mobile application downloadable through Google Play store and mobile application integrated with UMANG. The citizen can access the system online through the portal www.pgportal.nic.in. The efficacy of the CPGRAMS portal has been an important thrust area of the Nation’s Grievance Redressal Systems.

The status of the grievance filed in CPGRAMS can be tracked with the unique registration ID provided at the time of registration of the complainant. CPGRAMS also provides appeal facility to the citizens if they are not satisfied with the resolution by the Grievance Officer. After closure of grievance if the complainant is not satisfied with the resolution, he/she can provide feedback. If the rating is ‘Poor’ the option to file an appeal is enabled. The status of the Appeal can also be tracked by the petitioner with the grievance registration number. Since July 2022, DARPG has also reached out to the citizen filing a grievance through CPGRAMS by contacting him through an outbound call centre and soliciting his feedback on his closed grievance.

Grievance Redressal Machinery in the States

The State Governments have evolved advanced mechanisms for redressal of public grievances. States have operationalized public grievances cells which receive complaints from citizens and forward those to the concerned departments and follow them up. Several Chief Ministers hold regular citizen interactions through physical meetings/virtual meetings for hearing and redressal of public grievances. In several States, Senior Officers visited districts and villages as part of Good Governance Week celebrations in 2021 and 2022 when nationwide campaigns for Effective Redressal of Public Grievances were conducted. The impact of multiple grievance redressal platforms functioning in unison in the Good Governance Week from December 19-25, 2022 was quite significant – 315 lac service delivery applications being disposed and 6 lac Public Grievances being redressed. The Department of Administrative Reforms and Public Grievances has collaborated closely with States in several initiatives for effective redressal of public grievances.

The Areas of Collaboration included:

i. Institution of an award category for Improving Service Delivery and Redressal of Public Grievances under the Scheme for Prime Minister’s Awards for Excellence in Public Administration 2020.

ii. National Workshop on Technology Platforms in Public Grievance Redressal on 18 February 2021 and the National Workshop on Sevottam in November 2022 and May 2023.

iii. One Nation – One Portal initiative by integration of CPGRAMS with State Grievance Portals and reverse integration.

iv. Sevottam Capacity Building Programs for Grievance Redressal Officers.

v. Publication of Monthly Reports from 2022.

vi. Collaboration with Government of Jammu & Kashmir for revamping the Awaaz e-Awam portal and relaunch as JKIGRAMS.

In pursuance of the decisions taken by the Prime Minister in the review meeting on 16 April 2022, CPGRAMS reforms were implemented by DARPG for improving quality of grievance disposal and reduce the disposal time. A comprehensive 10-Step CPGRAMS Reform program was adopted after several rounds of consultations with key stakeholders. DARPG established collaborations with Common Service Centre (CSCs), Indian Institute of Technology Kanpur (IIT- K), National Institute of Smart Governance (NISG), National Institute of Design, Ahmedabad (NID), Quality Council of India, Centre for Development of Advanced Computing (C-DAC), Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited (BSNL), Centre for Good Governance Hyderabad and Haryana Institute of Public Administration (HIPA) Gurgaon through MOUs and work orders.

The technology improvements in CPGRAMS are outlined as follows:

i) Universalization of CPGRAMS 7.0 - Auto-routing of grievances to the last mile

ii) Technological Enhancements - Automatic flagging of urgent grievances leveraging AI/ML.

iii) Language Translation – CPGRAMS Portal in 22 scheduled languages along with English

iv) Grievance Redressal Index - Ranking of Ministries / Departments on their Performance.

v) Feedback Call Centre - 50-seater call centre to collect feedback directly from every citizen whose grievance is redressed.

vi) One Nation One Portal - Integration of State Portal and other GoI portals with CPGRAMS.

vii) Inclusivity and Outreach - Empowering the remotest citizen to file grievances through CSC’s.

viii) Training and Capacity Building - Conducted by ISTM and State ATIs under SEVOTTAM scheme for enabling effective grievance resolution.

ix) Monitoring Progress - Monthly reports for both the Central Ministries/Departments and States/UTs.

x) Data Strategy Unit - Established at DARPG for insightful data analytics.

Two PMUs were established at DARPG – (a) PMU with QCI team for preparation of the CPGRAMS Monthly Reports for Central Ministries and States and (b) PMU with CGG Hyderabad team for preparation of Grievance Redressal Index in addition to the Data Strategy Unit with Data Analytics specialists in collaboration with National Institute of Smart Governance. The Public Grievances Division of DARPG was strengthened with comprehensive redeployment and all vacant posts being filled up. DARPG collaborated with 22 State Administrative Training Institutes for implementation of the Sevottam Program following extensive discussions with HIPA Gurgaon.

In pursuance of the deliberations in the Chintan Shivir, DARPG has further enhanced the processes for establishing greater citizen connect – the steps include improvements in call centre engagement with citizens, speech records being examined in senior level meetings, training programs for operators, sharing speech records of appeals filed through call centre with appellate officers, introduction of chat bot, introduction of outgoing call centre and addition of new call centre operators.

Best Practices in State Grievance Portals

SPANDANA (Andhra Pradesh): The Government of Andhra Pradesh grievance redressal portal operationalized at www.spandana.ap.gov.in is one of the most comprehensive grievance redressal portals of India. The common platform through SPANDANA portal integrates all levels. The process flow of SPANDANA envisages grievances are received from multiple sources – on the portal, through toll free numbers, through petitions received through e-mails, and redressal through grievance cells in district, division and tehsil levels. Village level volunteers receive door step SPANDANA applications and deliver to the GRAMA SACHIVALAYAM for redressal. Mondays are designated as grievances day and the integration of all offices at District, Sub-Division & Mandal is through video conferencing on grievances day. A 14-digit unique ID is issued through the SPANDANA website. The citizen can track his grievance through the tracking ID provided in the acknowledgement slip. The Action Taken Report is uploaded on the portal and sent by SMS to the citizen. A dedicated toll-free call centre (18002331077) has been operationalized for feedback and 100 percent quality audit on redressal is undertaken and reopening of grievance in case the citizen is not satisfied with the quality of disposal.

SWAGAT (Gujarat): The CMO Gujarat operates an ICT based program since April 2003 for effective, transparent and speedy redress of the grievances of the citizens at various levels of the government throughout the State including that at the highest levels by direct interaction with Hon’ble Chief Minister. The SWAGAT portal is a combination of digital and communication technology in the form of a program to resolve public grievances effectively. Under SWAGAT, citizens can register their grievances at village, taluka and district levels. Citizens can view the status of their application online, using their allotted password and login ID at any internet access point. The software application enables an online review of sub-district, district SWAGAT and State SWAGAT outcomes and disposal of grievances is also monitored by the software. Cases for attention of Chief Minister are selected as those that are long standing, acute humanitarian issues, difficult to resolve at other levels in Government and those that have policy implications. 

Applications are registered in 3 categories – (i) Policy Matters where a limitation or gap in the policy requires attention (ii) Long Pending grievances where the application has remained unresolved after initial application (iii) First time grievances which are sent to lower levels. There exist four levels of SWAGAT – on every 4th Thursday of the month the SWAGAT hearings are held in the State Capital Gandhinagar by Hon’ble Chief Minister of Gujarat through video conference The District SWAGAT is held in all 33 districts and the Sub-District SWAGAT and GRAM SWAGAT are also held as per prescribed schedules. The four levels are well integrated by software. SWAGAT has enhanced the accountability of Government, systemic changes as decisions lead to policy reform, high citizen’s satisfaction, total transparency and monitoring system as also awareness at highest levels of authority on public grievances. SWAGAT received the 2010 UN Public Service Award in improving transparency, accountability and responsiveness in Public Service.

JK-IGRAMS (Jammu & Kashmir): JK-IGRAMS along with LG’s monthly mulaqaat with citizens and review with officers provides institutional framework to citizens that is accessible to all in Jammu & Kashmir. The JK-IGRAMS portal is www.jkgrievance.in and key features include decentralisation of grievance system by mapping subordinate offices upto block level, setting up of 2 call centres in Jammu and Srinagar for registering grievances, Collectors made epicentre and all Districts/ Blocks linked to CPGRAMS, Grievance Analysis teams to study and share findings, with monthly mulaaquat with LG J&K. The impacts increased disposal from 41 per cent to 74 per cent in 4 months time, in all categories. The dedicated call centre provides a unique JKIGRAMS number which is forwarded to the grievance officer and online status is available to the citizen for effective follow-up. Various analytical reports and other MIS options on the portal assist administration in data filtering.

SAMADHAN (Uttar Pradesh): SAMADHAN is an integrated web based application system which brings all grievance redressal mechanism to one platform and enables instant and easy communication between Government and Citizens resulting in speedy redressal of their grievances from anywhere and anytime and It also provides facility for submission of grievances online by aggrieved citizen. The Grievance input mechanism has Janta Darshan by Chief Minister at State level and District Collector at District level. The SAMADHAN portal integrates different channels and portals including the PG-Portal, Anti Bhu Mafia Portal, Anti-Corruption portal, CM Helpline etc. The citizen relationship management contains online registration and tracking of grievances, project management and monitoring, analytical reports, calls/ SMS/ e- mail, integrated & single platform, sending reminders and giving feedback. Feedback is obtained through the CM Helpline call center and the complainant can also provide online feedback through portal. Negative feedback is reviewed by one level higher, through grading opinion, if senior officer finds disposal of the grievance insufficient/ not satisfactory then he/ she can revive the disposed complaint.

Special Campaigns: India’s Quest for Institutionalizing Swachhata and Reducing Pendency in Government Offices

Prime Minister Modi has given a clarion call for Swachh Bharat in 2014, the swachhata movement was extended in campaign mode to government offices. Since 2021, three annual Special Campaigns have been conducted by the Government with the Department of Administrative Reforms and Public Grievances as the Nodal Department for month long period from October 2-31 every year. The Special Campaign 3.0 was implemented in Central Government from October 2-31, 2023 with the objective of institutionalizing swachhata and minimising pendency in government. The Special Campaign 3.0 was undertaken in 2.58 lakh office spaces, 26.35 lakh files were weeded out, 164 lakh of office space was freed and scrap disposal earned Rs. 556.35 crores. The Special Campaign 3.0 was India’s largest ever campaign for institutionalizing swachhata and reducing pendency in office spaces. The Special Campaign

3.0 badopted a saturation approach and was conducted in all attached, subordinate, autonomous offices, public sector enterprises, overseas missions and posts. The Special Campaign 3.0 covered 75,000 Post Offices, 31,275 Schools, 26,958 Bank branches, 23,672 Railway Stations and 13,168 Road Transport offices. The Special Campaign 3.0 extended from Pahalgam to Mayiladuthurai, from Barmer to Tinsukia, covering railway stations, airports, cantonment areas, post offices, Krishi Vigyan Kendras, Ports Coal Fields, cultural institutions and spaces and all institutions with citizen interface.

The Special Campaign 3.0 brought in a number of success stories in digitisation, efficient management of office spaces, enhancement of office premises, environment friendly practices, inclusivity, protocols and mechanisms. Collectively Special Campaigns from 2021 to 2023 ushered in transformational reforms in clean office spaces while earning significant revenues from scrap disposal. From 2021 to 2023, in three Special Campaigns, cleanliness campaign was conducted in 4,04,776 office spaces, 96.10 lakh files were weeded out, 355.5 lakh sq ft space was freed and Rs. 1162.49 crore revenue was earned from scrap disposal. Across Government, Departments and Ministries disposed condemned vehicles, old furniture, outdated laptops, desktops, printers, photocopiers and electronic/ office scrap. The Special Campaigns were holistic in size and scale, witnessed widespread participation from thousands of officials and citizens who came together to create a movement for Swachhata in Government offices. Cabinet Ministers and Ministers of State participate in the Special Campaigns providing leadership and guidance in implementation. Special Campaign 2.0 of 2022 was 15 times larger than Special Campaign of 2021 in terms of cleanliness campaign sites. The Special Campaign 3.0 of 2023 was 2.5 times larger than Special Campaign 2.0 of 2022 in terms of cleanliness campaign sites, 1.5 times larger in revenue earned from scrap disposal and 1.8 times larger in terms of space freed.

The progress of the Special Campaign 3.0 was monitored on a dedicated portal www.scdpm.nic.in on a daily basis. 295 Nodal Officers and Sub-Nodal Officers were appointed in all Ministries and Departments. The Special Campaign 3.0 was reviewed on a weekly basis by Secretaries to Government of India. The progress of the Special Campaign 3.0 was widely reported in social media with over 100,000 tweets by Ministries/ Departments on the hashtag #specialcampaign3, issue of 282 PIB Statements, several films and discussion panels on DD News/ Sansad TV, AIR and Media Conferences. Over 300 best practices were reported in conducting the Special Campaign 3.0 as a citizen centric movement to bring citizens and government closer, create an aesthetic and pleasant work environment in government offices.

The Ministry of Coal presented sculptures made of scrap (Kabad se Kalakriti) at SECL Anuppur, the Department of Higher Education built check dams from plastic waste at VNIT Nagpur, the Department of Scientific and Industrial Research presented the Recycling on Wheels to efficiently extract precious metals from shredded e-waste. Several digitization practices were witnessed amongst which were the launch of I-GOT on CPGRAMS of CBDT, the launch of the intelligent grievance monitoring system 2.0 in DARPG, the vidyanjali app for donation of dated electronic equipment in Department of Education, the independent public grievance dashboard of Department of Telecom. The best practices compared with the numerous innovations witnessed in 2022 which included development of office spaces like the Aranya Gallery made with installation of paintings at New Customs House New Delhi, Madhubani paintings at Department of Agriculture and Farmers Welfare, Wall paintings and selfie points in Post Offices, Mechanized cleaning in Railways, use of robotics for mechanical cleaning by Department of Atomic Energy, conversion of paddle streamer into a unique showcase for cruise tourism in Ministry of Ports and Shipping. Weeded papers were recycled as file covers and file boards and swachh ATM’s to collect waste were setup.

One of most notable outcomes of the Special Campaign 3.0 was the preservation and conservation of office records of historical value. 3100 records of historical value were identified for transfer to National Archives of India following the accession process for preservation and presenting to researchers. An important aspect of the Special Campaign 3.0 was focus on reducing pendency in government with 5.21 lac public grievances being redressed, 4164 references of Members of Parliament being responded to and several inter-ministerial references, parliamentary assurances and state government references being addressed. Most Ministries and Departments were successful in addressing 100 percent of the targets they had set for themselves. Government has strived to institutionalize the commitment and drive for swachhata and reducing pendency with directions that the activities of the Special Campaign will be continued on a regular basis with 3 hours being dedicated to swachhata activities every week in Ministries and Departments. The Special Campaigns from 2021 to 2023 represent next generation administrative reforms in the Amrit Kaal period for institutionalizing swachhata and reducing pendency.

Initiative for Increasing Efficiency in Central Secretariat

In 2022, the Central Secretariat continued to implement the Initiative for Increasing Efficiency in Decision Making in Government. Under this initiative, a four-pronged approach was adopted by the Central Government with DARPG as the nodal department.

i. Delayering- Review of Channels of Submission for creating flatter organisations – the channel of submission was reduced to not more than 4 levels from 7-8 levels

ii. Delegation of Financial/ Administrative powers to lower functionaries

iii. Adoption of Desk Officer System to ensure single points of file disposal

iv. Adoption of e-Office version 7.0 and Digitalisation of all receipts in the Central Registration Units.

Some of the key highlights are as follows:

All Ministries/ Departments of Govt. of India have reviewed their channel of submission and adopted delayering (60 fully delayered; 19 partially delayered). With this, the channel of submission for most of the subjects has reduced to upto 4 levels. Financial delegation for miscellaneous and contingent expenditure was made to DS/Director level officers. Officers were divided into separate categories. Delayering entailed reducing number of levels, and level jumping was adopted amongst officers and staff with the guidelines that no officer falling in a particular category will put up files to another officer in the same category, which means they work in parallel, horizontal organisational structures - Additional Secretaries/ Joint Secretaries were placed in category II and Deputy Secretary/ Under Secretary were placed in category III across Ministries/ Departments. Several areas of financial delegation which were not revisited for several years were reviewed.

All Ministries/ Departments have upgraded to e- Office version 7.0. e-File adoption in Central Government in June 2023 was 90.19 per cent. E-Office version 7.0 has resulted in substantial increase in facilitated inter-ministerial e-file movement and substantial increase has been implemented. Use of heavy-duty scanners in central registration units was adopted, and fresh receipts were replied to in digital form. The digitalisation of Central Registration Units along with e-Office has resulted in significant reduction in paper consumption in several Ministries/Departments. Flatter organisations have enabled faster decision making.

To enable a work from home environment in the pandemic, the Central Secretariat Manual of Office Procedure 2022 provided Virtual Private Network Facility upto Deputy Secretary level and laptops were provided upto Under Secretary level. Desk officer system is operationalized in 40 Ministries/ Departments where it is feasible. The Ministry of External Affairs has operationalized 223 desk officers with specific assignment of responsibilities. The Government’s initiative for “Increasing Efficiency in Decision Making” represented one of the most complicated and far-reaching administrative reforms witnessed in the Central Secretariat. It brought a silent reform in work culture, reduced hierarchies and resulted in significant adoption of new technology. It has also enabled responsive communication and enhanced efficiency in processing of receipts.

Vision India@2047

The DARPG is amongst the Ministries/Departments of Government that is formulating its Vision India@2047. The DARPG constituted an Advisory Group under the chairmanship of Minister of State for PMO, Personnel, PG and Pensions with 15 Sector Specialists with National Experts from Senior Civil Servants, IIT’s, IIM’s Central and State Universities, and Public Policy Research Organizations. A working group under the chairmanship of Secretary DARPG was constituted for formulation of the Vision India@2047 under the overall supervision of the Advisory Group. The Indian Institute of Public Administration served as the Knowledge Partner of DARPG in formulating its Vision India@2047. The Advisory Group held 3 rounds of Meetings and Working Group held 7 rounds of meetings. Based on deliberations of working group and Advisory group DARPG prepared a Vision India @ 2047 document with the theme of Bringing Citizens and Government together.

Conclusion

I have tried to collate the vast gamut of work undertaken in ushering in the technology revolution in governance from 2019-2024 that has enabled millions of Indians to reap the benefits of transparency in governance, faster timelines of disposal and quality decision making. It can be said that the imposing 182-meter Statue of Unity of Sardar Vallabhai Patel provides inspiration for the Nation’s relentless commitment to excellence in the Amrit Kaal Period.