Indian Express 11.12.2009
Soon, districts to get mobile complaint redressal system
System initiated in Jhansi district as trial run
The state Department of Information and Technology, along with the National Informatics Centre (NIC) in Uttar Pradesh, have initiated a new voice-recorded complaint redressal system at the district Jan Suvidha Kendras.
With this new system, any citizen can get his complaint lodged against corruption or anomalies in government schemes by merely calling up 24-hour helpline numbers. He will be given a number, through which he can himself track his complaint with the help of a telephone.
As a trial run, the system was initiated in Jhansi district under the National E-Governance Plan, beginning Thursday. The NIC hopes that it will launch the system in at least 50 per cent of the districts by March 2010.
State NIC Director S B Singh said: “This is a digitised version of the Lokvani complaint redressal system, where people could walk into a Lokvani centre and lodge their complaints online. Here, all one needs is a telephone through which he can call up the helpline numbers and lodge his complaint.”
The Jan Suvidha Kendra in Jhansi district became the first 24X7 call centre for the system.
“The district administration will assign five employees in this centre to receive complaints in shifts. All the helpline numbers have a caller ID attached to it so that we can trace from which number the call has been made,” said Singh.
Also, a voice recording machine is attached to the telephone, thereby recording the entire conversation. “By recording, we will not only maintain a data of the calls, but also check whether the person on duty was polite to the complainant,” he added.
After the complaint is registered, the details will be sent to the district magistrate and an SMS receipt — giving the details of the complaint, complaint number and the officer working on it — will be sent to the complainant.
“In case of a basic telephone, we will call them up to give the details,” said Singh. A copy of this SMS will also be sent to the additional district magistrate for quick action on the complaint.
“After e-governance, we are initiating a new system of m-governance, where a person with a mobile phone or a telephone can lodge his complaint. A villager does not need to go to a cyber cafe, he can just call. With this scheme, we are hoping that we will be able to get closer to the people,” said Singh.
