Senior Shiv Sena leader and former Maharashtra Minister Ravindra Waikar was on Tuesday appointed the chief coordinator in the Chief Minister’s Office (CMO), a post where he will handle public grievances. This is for the first time that such a post has been created in the Maharashtra CMO.
According to a Government Order (GO) issued in Mumbai, Mr. Waikar, as the chief coordinator in the CMO, will have a Cabinet Minister’s rank.
The GO said Mr. Waikar will be responsible for handling grievances, complaints of members of the public and receive representations from people who come to Mantralaya (State Secretariat) to meet Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray.
He will also coordinate with the district and divisional level CMOs set up recently, it said. The Order said, “An experienced and senior person was required for the post for coordination.”
Mr. Waikar will have staff from the CMO to assist him, the Order said.
Mr. Thackeray took over as Chief Minister on November 28 last year as head of the three-Party alliance government comprising his Party Shiv Sena, the NCP and the Congress.
During the winter session of the Legislature held in Nagpur in December, Mr. Thackeray had declared he would set up CMO at the district and divisional levels in an effort to decentralise power and ensure people from rural areas don’t have to travel all the way to Mumbai with their problems.
