Cabinet Secretary Puts Grievance Redressal on Top, PMO-style Oversight in Works: ET

Moneylife Digital Team 19 June 2025

Public Interest

Placing public grievance redressal on 'high' priority, the Union Cabinet secretary is reportedly asked all ministries and departments to overhaul their grievance redressal mechanism and bring in the new oversight by senior officers in the prime minister's office (PMO) so that public concerns are not disposed off 'mechanically', says a report from Economic Times (ET).

"Alongside, grievances pertaining to the income tax department and the central board of indirect taxes and customs (CBIC) have this week been brought under the jurisdiction and oversight of the directorate of public grievances (DPG), an entity within the Cabinet secretariat," the report says.

Following the 4 June 2025 meeting of the council of ministers chaired by prime minister (PM) Narendra Modi, the Cabinet secretary has sought 'timely and qualitative disposal of citizen grievances' across departments, ET has learnt.

PM Modi is learnt to have underlined the need for prioritised and qualitative improvement in public grievance redressal systems and he is learnt to have referred to the new template brought into the PMO, the report says.

According to ET, the recently-introduced PMO template now has its 30-odd senior officials tasked with examining and processing at least ten pending public grievances daily—300-plus every day by the PMO alone. "With senior officials in charge, a dramatic difference is learnt to be seen in both the timeliness of redressal and quality of redressal. The PM is learnt to have suggested at the meeting that similar mechanisms be adopted across ministries involving senior officers of the department concerned."

"A mechanism will soon be brought in across ministries to directly involve senior officials for ‘effective disposal’ so that grievances are treated with due seriousness. Designated a 'high' priority action point, the mechanism for a more effective grievance redressal system will be outlined by the department of administrative reforms and public grievances (DAPRG)," the report says.

Comments

User

sgraghu2008

12 months ago

Still doubtful about the bureaucratic work culture I.e. for the sake of doing. It could prove a woven net not for public but for them

r_ashok41

12 months ago

long awaited initiative and hope it functions as per customers needs and does not end up in simply doing the formality without looking into the issue and need to inform customers also and if he does not agree to the resolution there needs to be a mechanism to address the same