Doing away with the general practice of holding public hearing session on Monday in the UT Secretariat, the Punjab Governor and UT Administrator Shivraj Patil held his public hearing session in Punjab Raj Bhawan on Thursday after a gap of more than seven months.
The last session was convened on January 6. The session held on Thursday in Raj Bhawan saw eight out of total ten complainants turning up to meet Patil.
During the session, Patil asked the senior UT officers to strengthen the public grievances mechanisms in their respective departments to improve service delivery systems. He also issued directions to the concerned officers to sort out the complaints in a time bound manner.
Responding to the request of complainant Shahid Bhagat, Patil asked the concerned officers to make a proposal to rehabilitate all those who were displaced from Palsore and Shaheed Bhagat Singh Colony, Sector 49 here. He said if needed increase the number of houses going to be constructed in the future.
In other two cases, complainant Manju and Amdani Devi, both widows of late Raju and Murari Parshad respectively had requested for jobs on compassionate ground. After inquiring about their cases, Patil asked the officer to give job on contract basis to next of the kin of deceased till they are eligible to get a regular post.
The leaders of SAD Chandigarh unit and officers of UT Food and Supplies Department also met Patil to raise various issues.
All senior officers of the UT Administration were present during the public hearing session.
A senior official of the UT Administration requesting anonymity said that around eight complainants turned up for the session on Thursday at Raj Bhawan. As some delegations were scheduled to meet Patil on Thursday, it was decided to convene the public hearing session in the Raj Bhawan as well.
The official said that the UT Administrator Shivraj Patil has remained busy in past few months. Earlier, due to lok Sabha elections and then, due to other works, he was busy and had to cancel the public hearing sessions.”
During Thursday’s session, most of the problems were sorted out on the spot and remaining issues, which needs examination at different levels, would be expedited within the rules and procedures by the concerned department, added a UT spokesperson.
As a general practice, the Administrator used to hold public hearing session on the first and third Monday of every month. But due to busy schedule of Patil, the public hearing sessions have been cancelled in the past seven months.
The public hearing sessions had continued to evoke poor response during last year as it had witnessed a poor turn out of only four complainants each in consecutive four sessions from March to May.
As per the existing practice of the session, whenever a complaint is received, it is referred to the concerned department and the officials of the concerned department are directed to look into the matter to redress the grievances of the people at the earliest.
During the UT public hearing session, the same complainants have attended the meeting several times, questioning the very purpose of the session to redress the public grievances in a time-bound manner.