The online grievance redressal meets being conducted on Mondays in the wake of COVID-19 pandemic will continue in September also, District Collector Shilpa Prabhakar Satish has said.
As the pandemic and consequent lockdown have become unpredictable with the steady rise in cases everyday, Ms. Shilpa had dedicated two telephone numbers - 0462 – 2500611 for submitting petitions relating to rural and urban local bodies and 0462 – 2500191 for the petitions on grievances relating to revenue department – for submission of petitions.
Taking this procedure to the next level, Ms. Shilpa asked the National Informatics Centre to develop a platform for online submission of petitions by the public. The petitioners were asked to submit their grievances through District Collector’s Public Grievance Meeting through videoconference on the first page of http://tirunelveli.nic.in either from their home or by visiting the nearby e-seva centers or the taluk offices with masks.
After successfully conducting the trials, the online grievances redressal meet took off on August 3 with Ms. Shilpa receiving petitions online from the public. Even as the Collector and other officials were sitting in the NIC’s videoconference hall, the petitioners were asked to explain their grievances one by one based on their petition registration seniority.
As the clarifications sought by the Collector or the officials were cleared satisfactorily by the petitioner, the grievances were immediately forwarded to the department concerned for further action and subsequent submission of ‘action taken report’ by the official concerned.
“In August, we received 57 petitions from the public online. Of this, 13 were relating to land ownership issues, six relating to monetary benefits including retirement benefits, 15 relating to seeking basic amenities, three pertaining to social security welfare assistances, five relating to issue of certificates and remaining 15 relating to other requests. While 41 petitions were accepted, action is being taken on five petitions. As 11 petitions were found to be not genuine, the appeals were rejected,” Ms. Shilpa said.
Since this new procedure introduced in the wake of COVID-19 is found to be effective, it will be continued during the month of September also, she said.
