‘CM’s Public Services, Outreach’ office established

Jammu, Dec 5: J&K Government Thursday established 'Chief Minister’s Public Services and Outreach’ office under Chief Minister's Secretariat, for ensuring efficient grievance redressal and timely public service delivery through citizen engagement.

The office will initially comprise two wings at the central level, each headed by an officer of the rank of Special Secretary or Additional Secretary to the government.

Its two wings will comprise ‘Grievance Redressal’ wing (Raabita) and ‘Public outreach and evaluation-cum-feedback’ wing.

‘Grievance Redressal’ wing or ‘Raabita’ will facilitate prompt grievance resolution and service delivery, besides oversee the performance of regional and district offices in grievance handling.

Public outreach and evaluation-cum-feedback wing will engage with citizens through outreach programmes across all administrative levels, PSGA monitoring, feedback collection on governance and service delivery. Besides, it will evaluate government initiatives and recommend improvements.

'Chief Minister’s Public Services and Outreach Office' will involve an integrated online grievance portal for registration, tracking and resolution of grievances, besides escalating unresolved matters to higher authorities for prompt resolution.

The Information Technology Department will incorporate a window for handling the online grievances of ‘Raabita’ on the existing Samadhan Portal. The process in this regard will be completed in 15 days.

Significant task of the office will be to actively collect feedback and suggestions from the citizens through online and offline platforms and improvement thereof.

It will adopt a hybrid communication approach, utilizing both online platforms (portals, social media, helpline) and offline methods (public interaction, district level meetings) to ensure accessibility & responsive governance.

The staff and other modalities for the office will be finalized by the Chief Minister's Secretariat.

Meanwhile, the Government also constituted a committee to examine and finalize the Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) to be executed between the Department of Public Grievances, J&K and Service Provider (BISAG-N) regarding the ‘JK Samadhan’ portal.

The panel will have Additional Secretary, Department of Public Grievances as its chairperson.

Director Finance, Department of Public Grievances or his representative (not below the rank of Accounts Officer); a representative each of Finance Department, Department of Law, Justice & Parliamentary Affairs and Information Technology Department (not below the rank of Additional Secretary in each case); a representative of Information Technology Department (Technical); a representative from NIC, J&K and a representative from BISAG-N of Information will be its members. Under Secretary to the Government, the Department of Public Grievances will be its member secretary.

The Committee may co-opt any other member. It will finalize the draft MoU to be executed between the Department of Public Grievances, J&K and BISAG N, regarding the ‘JK Samadhan’ portal.