More than 1,400 reminders from CM Janta Darbar have been sent to different departments and officials so far to get redressal of the pending grievances of people. This is not an ideal situation at all.”
This statement of land Registration, Revenue, Sports, Culture, Tourism and Youth Affairs Minister Amar Kumar Bauri on Wednesday right after hearing cases in Janta Darbar, itself gives an insight of how much apathetic the system has turned when it comes to listening to the common people.
There are dozens of complainants in CM Janta Darbar every week who say that this platform remained their last hope. The very basic idea of Janta Darbar itself was that the officials not listening to common people will listen to orders coming from CMO. However, numbers depict a completely different picture.
According to CM Janta Darbar, more than 1,400 reminders have been sent to departments and officials so far asking primarily the status of cases sent to them from Janta Darbar. Unfortunately, even these reminders from none other than the highest administrative authority have remained unanswered. This has made a couple of ministers in recent weeks say that such ignorant officials will have to feel the heat now.
This attitude of officials has started sowing seeds of disappointment among complainants resulting in numbers of complainants coming to Janta Darbar decreasing week after week. There are complainants who come in Janta Darbar every other week only to get a reply like “We will look into the matter”, or that “call next week to know what has happened to your case”.
But ministers have their own versions also. “You can’t expect any case to be dispensed within seconds. We are here only to ensure that cases wouldn’t remain pending. Then, there are verity of cases, which can’t be assured to be solved the way complainants want,” said Food, Public Distribution and Consumer Affairs Minister Saryu Roy. He claimed that there was no case of Janta Darbar pending in his department and if there was any in future, it will be taken seriously.
Water Resources, Drinking Water and Sanitation Minister Chandra Prakash Choudhary, on the other hand, said that false cases coming to Janta Darbar were becoming an area of concern. “There are dozens of complainants who come to Janta Darbar just to influence the other party. We need to look into veracity of cases. Genuine cases are being dispensed of at every level,” he said.
However, Bauri said on Wednesday that decreasing number of cases coming in Janta Darbar was a reflection of earlier cases being dispensed swiftly. “However, if the situation is other way round and complainants believe that even Janta Darbar can’t help them only because officials remain ignorant, it would not be tolerated at all,” he said.