Indian citizens living abroad can seek direct help from its missions on every issue that troubles them on a foreign soil. In a bid to provide quick and efficient consular grievances redressal mechanism, Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) has launched a new system under which complaints by Indian diaspora can be now filed online and the officials in Indian Missions and MEA will have to resolve the issue within a given time frame.
The consular grievances will be filed on Government’s new portal ‘Madad’ and the complaint will reach the concerned official for intervention in no time. The officers will have certain time frame to sort out the grievances.
If he or she fails to do so in the given time the complaint will automatically reach senior officer’s computer. MEA officials said ‘Madad’ will speed up forwarding and handling of complaints, improve tracking and redressal of unresolved cases. The scheme, that was tested as a pilot project in Oman, has been launched for all missions.
External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj said this is to fix accountability and fasten the grievance redressal. “Till now complaints were sent to Members of Parliament, who forwarded it to Prime Minister’s Office (PMO). The PMO then forwarded it to concerned Ministry for action. The entire process used to take three to four weeks.
This portal will significantly reform the linear process adopted to post grievances from the originator of the grievance to the concerned Embassy or Consulate of India abroad and cut down the time required for grievances to be sent from Delhi to our Missions abroad and to get them to take necessary action,” Swaraj said.
To operate through ‘Madad’, the complainant, after registering on the portal, has to log in and file complaints. The officials would be assigned responsibility through a colour-coded dashboard that would change colour if the response is not given in a stipulated time.
The colour-code system will follow red-amber-green pattern. Missions performing well in redressing grievances would be in ‘green’, while those keeping inordinately pending cases would show as ‘red’. According to MEA official, maximum priority would be given to cases related to bringing back mortal remains of any Indian national.
The entire history of grievance would be maintained online. Swaraj said such “healthy intra-department competition” would act as a deterrent for officials to not let work slide and they would respond with greater accountability now.