Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar with Deputy Chief Minister Tejaswi Yadav launching the Bihar Public Grievance Redressal Act in Patna on Sunday. (PTI photo)
Chief Minister Nitish Kumar today launched the Bihar Public Grievance Redressal Act empowering people to get their grievances redressed within a specific time frame in the state.
"Today is a historic day in the field of governance and administrative reforms as the Bihar Public Grievance Redressal Act is being launched. It was on this day that JP gave a clarion call for total revolution from Patna's Ganhdi Maidan. Besides, it is World Environment Day," Mr Kumar said while addressing a gathering at SK Memorial Hall in Patna.
"The Act has empowered people to get their grievances redressed. Now no one can ignore them. They (officers/staff) will have to listen to them and redress their grievances.
"If the grievance cannot be redressed, then the complainant will get a letter citing reasons for not getting the grievance redressed. The complainant can file an appeal if he/she is not satisfied with the answer," Mr Kumar said.
"I am quite confident that the Act will be fully successful in the state. It will be implemented in the whole of country once it is successful in Bihar," he said exhorting officials and staff to work for the people.
Mr Kumar inaugurated the State Public Grievances Receiving Centre in Patna, besides the inauguration of 139 Public Grievances Redressal Officer's Offices and Grievance Receiving Centres in various districts and sub-divisions.
All these Public Grievances Redressal Officers have been given ample powers to get the people's grievances redressed, he said.
Sharing experiences of his weekly Janata Darbar, Mr Kumar said out of 2,77,249 applications he received in his 241 Janata Darbar meetings since April 2006, 2,33,260 applications were disposed off.
"On the basis of my experience of holding Janata Darbar meetings for ten years, I can say people got the opportunity to be heard at police stations, blocks, districts and state headquarters. But, there was no guarantee of their grievances being redressed. Most of the grievances remained unresolved and that used to haunt my mind," the chief minister said.
As per the Act, anyone or any group of people can file complaint for redressal of grievances with regard to various schemes or programmes run by government, within a specific time frame.
Complainants can file complaints both at the offices of complaint centres at sub-divisional or with the district public grievances redressal officers and also at the complaint centres set up at state headquarters.
For more information, persons willing to file complaints can log onto - http://lokshikayat.bihar.gov.in.
Mr Kumar said the Grievance Redressal Act would not touch the issues covered under RTI Act, RTPS Act, sub-judice matters and service related issues, specially of the government.
He also talked about his earlier launched scheme of Right to Public Service Act (RTPS) which helped people in getting their work done for things such as issuance of certificates for income, caste, domicile and land possession.
A total of 13.5 crore applications have been filed under RTPS Act, which was implemented on August 15, 2011 and out of this, 13.33 crore applications have been disposed off.
Prominent among those who were present on the occasion were Deputy Chief Minister Tejaswi Prasad Yadav, Ministers Awadhesh Kumar Singh, Alok Mehta, Ramvichar Rai, Abdul Gafoor and Anita Devi, Chief Secretary Anjani Kumar Singh, DGP PK Thakur, Development Commissioner Shishir Sinha and General Administration Department Principal Secretary Amir Subhani.