The Times of India 18.08.2009

New counselling centre to solve family disputes

TNN 18 August 2009, 05:19am IST

CHENNAI: In order to minimise the interference of police in family disputes and to settle them amicably, the city police on Monday opened a family counselling centre at the city police commissioner's office with the co-operation of the social welfare board. The centre, which will work on all days from 10 am to 5 pm, will provide counselling to parties who approach the police with family disputes. It will have three women counsellors from the social welfare department.

Talking to the media after inaugurating the centre today, police commissioner T Rajendran said that a majority of the 60-odd complainants he met on a daily basis were involved in family disputes. "We consider such disputes as a social issue. Most of these issues could be amicably settled without the interference of the police through counselling," CoP said. The police would only interfere when the complainants remain adamant even after the counselling.

Social welfare board chairperson Rokkiah Salma said the interference of the police in minor family disputes was against societal norms. "Most of such issues can be solved through counselling. We have 66 such counselling centres across the state and now we have opened one inside the city commissioner's office," Salma said.

She said the counselling centre was not just for women. Men facing family problems could also approach the centre.

The Hindu 18.08.2009

Online registration of grievances introduced

Staff Reporter

— Photo: A. Shaikmohideen

facility: Minister for Environment, Sports and Youth Welfare T.P.M. Maideen Khan inaugurating the online registration of grievances in Tirunelveli on Monday.

TIRUNELVELI: The Tirunelveli district administration has launched online registration of public grievances submitted during the weekly grievance day meetings being conducted at the Collectorate on every Monday to ensue speedy disposal of complaints.

Since the process has been simplified and decentralised with the software developed by the National Informatics Centre here, the public can register their complaints even at block development office, taluk offices, office of the Divisional Revenue Officers or at the Collectorate, depending on their convenience, and track their grievances with the help of a ‘key number’ being given on registration of the complaint.

As the district administration has connected all government offices here with Tamil Nadu Statewide Area Network (SWAN) and working on providing Internet connectivity to all 425 village panchayats, the petitioners can know the status of their grievances and the replies given in the panchayat itself.

The answer given by the officials concerned will be evaluated by the a four-member team comprising Collector, District Revenue Officer, Project Officer, District Rural Development Agency and Project Officer, Mahalir Thittam, to assess the quality of the solution, which will be available on the Internet for next one year.

Launching the facility, Minister for Environment, Youth Welfare and Sports T.P.M. Maideen Khan opined that the computerisation of grievance disposal would ensure transparency and improve efficiency of the official machinery’s functioning.

Collector M. Jayaraman, on whose initiatives the online system was introduced, appealed to Minister for Information Technology Poongothai Aladi Aruna, to help transforming the Collectorate into a ‘paperless office.’ The ‘project report’ of this innovative exercise would be submitted to the Minister shortly,” Mr. Jayaraman informed.

MLAs V. Karuppasamy Pandian, M. Appavu and N. Maalairaja, Mayor A.L. Subramanian, and Deputy Mayor K. Muthuramalingam participated.