In order to ensure transparency, the Orissa government plans to introduce the electronic grievance redressal system (EGRS) in the implementation of the National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (NREGS), for the NREGS job seekers in the state.
As a starting it has already identified 10 potential areas of complain pertaining to NREGS which include complaints like not getting job cards, not being registered for work, not getting work after registration, getting work after 15 days, delay in payments among others.
In the absence of any standardised system of grievance registration, the citizens are left with no clue as to how to lodge complaint. Moreover citizens have no knowledge of specific responsibility of the government officials and different departments thereby leaving the citizens to locate different contact points. Besides, the administrators at the state, district, block and gram panchayat levels have no mechanism to track these complaints.
But now under this new grievance redressal system, there will be a call centre at the state head quarter. A toll free number will be introduced in the Panchayatiraj department where the beneficiaries can complain from any part of the state. The antecedents of the persons complaining will be kept secret and he will be provided with a complaint number.
Moreover a software has also been designed, where the complains booked through the toll free number will be routed to the concerned Block Development Officer (BDO) using the digital signature.
And as all the blocks will be connected with Virtual Private Network (VPN), there will not be any problem in sending the complaints through Internet. It is also mandatory for the BDO to take action on the complaints within 7 days, failing which the complaint will be forwarded to the project director, District Rural Development Agency (DRDA).
