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The government is leveraging next-generation artificial intelligence (AI)-enabled technology to augment the capabilities of the Centralised Public Grievance Redressal and Monitoring System (CPGRAMS) portal, according to the Deputy Minister of Personnel, Public Grievances, and Pensions, Jitendra Singh.
Dr. Jitendra Singh spearheaded the establishment of a Data Strategy Unit aimed at conducting root cause analyses of grievances, leading to systemic reforms within the administrative framework. His initiatives have resulted in a remarkable milestone, with the pendency of public grievance cases in central Ministries and Departments hitting an all-time low of 63,000 cases. This achievement reflects the efficacy of the strategic approach implemented under his guidance, fostering a more efficient and responsive grievance redressal system across governmental bodies.
The Centralised Public Grievance Redressal and Monitoring System is a web-based portal designed for citizens to register their grievances related to the ministries and departments of the central or state governments. Each Ministry and State possesses role-based access to CPGRAMS, which is further available to citizens through a standalone mobile application accessible via the Google Play store and integrated within UMANG. On average, the portal receives around 2 million grievances from the public annually.
Utilising a unique registration ID provided during the grievance registration, individuals can monitor the status of their filed grievances within CPGRAMS. Moreover, CPGRAMS offers an appeals process for citizens dissatisfied with the initial resolution provided by the Grievance Officer. Following the closure of a grievance, if the complainant remains unsatisfied and rates the resolution as ‘Poor,’ an option to file an appeal is activated. Petitioners can track the status of their appeal using the grievance registration number.
A Data Strategy Unit has also been set up and tasked with conducting root-cause analyses of grievances and implementing systemic reforms. These reforms have led to a reduction in backlog and an enhancement in the average time for resolving public grievances.
Over the past 16 months, ministries and departments have consistently resolved over 100,000 cases per month. The backlog of public grievance cases in central ministries and departments is currently at an unprecedented low. CPGRAMS has devised a reform strategy to ensure the effective resolution of public grievances, it includes the following steps:
- Breaking language barriers by providing CPGRAMS in all scheduled languages.
- Assessing the performance of ministries and departments and states/UTs through the grievance redressal and assessment index (GRAI).
- Publishing monthly reports for both central ministries and departments and states/UTs.
- Establishing a Feedback Call Centre for citizen input on the quality of redressal.
- Integrating various grievance portals of central ministries and states with CPGRAMS.
- Expanding CPGRAMS outreach in rural India through common service centres (CSC).
Singh noted that addressing public grievances was a key focus of the Special Campaign led by the government to institutionalise cleanliness (Swachhata) and reduce delays in government offices from 2-31 October. A remarkable 99.4%, totalling 521,958 public grievances, were successfully resolved during the Special Campaign in 2023. The CPGRAMS portal received a total of nearly 1.95 million citizen grievances as of 30 November this year. Notably, approximately 1.96 million grievances, including backlog cases, have been successfully resolved.
In October, OpenGov Asia reported that the CPGRAMS portal integrated an Intelligent Grievance Monitoring System (IGMS) 2.0 dashboard. It was implemented by the Indian Institute of Technology Kanpur following a memorandum of understanding with the Department of Administrative Reforms and Public Grievances (DARPG). The dashboard provides immediate tabular analyses for both filed and resolved grievances. It presents categorised data by state and district for grievances filed, along with ministry-wise information.
IIT-Kanpur also helped develop an AI-powered grievance management application for the Ministry of Defence (MoD) in 2021. It was launched to aid in understanding the nature of complaints, the geographies from where they emanate, and policy changes that can be introduced to create systemic improvements to address these grievances.