Online grievances portal launched in J&K

Tribune News Service

Srinagar, September 11

After complaints that the administration officials were not easily available to people, the Union Territory government on Friday launched an online grievance redress system Jammu and Kashmir Integrated Grievance Redressal System (J&K IGRAMS).

Under this system, people can file complaints and get updates about the status of their complaints round the clock. Locals can also submit their grievances through a call centre that will be established across every district.

The grievance system is being launched on a pilot basis initially in Jammu and Reasi districts of Jammu and Srinagar district of the Kashmir region. The initiative will be expanded in the remaining districts by October 2.

The announcement was made in Srinagar by J&K Lieutenant Governor (L-G) Manoj Sinha at his first press conference since taking over the reins of the UT administration. “After meeting various delegations from various quarters recently, we came to know that officials from the administration and other departments related to governance aren’t available to people. So, we have rolled out J&K IGRAMS,” Sinha said during the press conference.

The decision was taken during an administrative council (SAC) meeting chaired by the L-G where a set of other decisions were also taken.

The new grievance redress mechanism will replace the government’s current portal which was launched in 2018.

The initiative has been launched at a time when only 2G cellular Internet services are functional across the UT except two districts.

In another significant announcement, the L-G focused on increasing interaction between the police and the public.

Meanwhile, the L-G also announced that every single resident of the J&K Union Territory will be covered under the Ayushman Bharat Health insurance up to Rs 5 lakh. Besides healthy individuals, the insurance cover will also cover people suffering from fatal illnesses and other ailments.

The existing portal has now been integrated downwards to the district level by mapping another nearly 1,500 public offices in 20 districts of the UT from the existing 250, which is the widest possible coverage that has been conceived and enabled in the online management of public grievances in J&K. This has made it the first online grievance management system/ portal in the country that is linked with the Central government (at the top) and districts and even further downwards to the tehsils and blocks (at the bottom).

The L-G said the government was committed to undertaking all radical reforms to put in place a “people-centric good governance structure” that had an institutionalised grievance redress mechanism. This, he observed, was the most important component of a well-governed responsive administration and an indicator of efficiency and effectiveness of the administrative processes.

Terming it as a step towards gaining the people’s trust, the L-G remarked that an effective grievance redress mechanism was the lifeblood of any good governance system and was the priority for the J&K Government. A common citizen wants a sympathetic, courteous, responsive and helpful administrative set-up, he maintained.

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