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Jansamvad - Phone in Radio Programme and Grievance Redressal Website
Sagar District Administration
India

The Problem

Biggest challenge before the administration today is to reach out to people and give them quality services. The task becomes even more daunting with increasing population and expectations. Newer and more innovative methods have to be found out to accomplish the herculean challenge. In my opinion, if we can find ways to improve accessibility and accountability of the delivery system, it will certainly lead out to enhanced credibility of the governance. In Sagar distt. of MP we could achieve this by latching on to most conventional mode of communication i.e. Radio and most advanced IT tools like web based grievance redressed forums.

Solution and Key Benefits

 What is the initiative about? (the solution)
A program “Jansamvad” for understanding and solving public grievances was started by district administration, Sagar (M.P.) in December 2004 in which District Collector and chosen heads of the department participate in live phone in dialogue with people of district every Monday for one hour at All India Radio (AIR). Public Grievances are listened to and sorted out in stipulated time frame. In a very short time this programme became very popular and there was a massive response from all walks of life for the programme. The response was so good that people started complaining about telephone line congestion and district administration had to increase the number of telephone lines to receive phone calls. People very enthusiastically participate because they can directly talk to District Collector / Department heads and state their complaint fearlessly. From the very beginning the programme is being used as a device to impart information to the masses regarding various flag schemes of the State and Central government. So much so that this programme has catapulated the district among few top ranking districts in implementing one of the very ambitious Central Government Scheme “Total Sanitation Campaign” . Apart from this certain problems which are of general nature are dealt with elaborately and the listeners in large numbers automatically get to know the various facets of solution too. Through this program people get to know about various government schemes and take the benefits of it. so radio has become a useful instrument to spread such widespread awareness among citizens and villagers. This programme has top most ranking in AIR Sagar and has effectively increased number of radio listeners. The idea behind launching this programme was to lessen the response time as well as the inconvenience otherwise suffered by the aggrieved in travelling large distances to lodge their complaints. The program enables the people to lodge their complaint sitting at their place thus saving time and money. Another important aspects which makes the programme popular and effective is “surprise factor” and “transparency”. Anybody from any remote village can directly phone-in his grievance which is telecast live so the defaulting government servant is exposed before the whole district. These factors of surprise and transparency in the programme has led to tremendous improvement in government delivery system.

Actors and Stakeholders

 Who proposed the solution, who implemented it and who were the stakeholders?
Started in December 2004 this is a weekly programme held every Monday between 1500 Hrs to 1600 Hrs at Frequency Modulation 102.6 Mhz from All India Radio Sagar.

(a) Strategies

 Describe how and when the initiative was implemented by answering these questions
 a.      What were the strategies used to implement the initiative? In no more than 500 words, provide a summary of the main objectives and strategies of the initiative, how they were established and by whom.
District Sagar , the headquarter of Division Sagar together with all the four district namely Damoh, Panna, Tikamgarh and Chhatarpur constitute the Bundelkhand region of Madhya Pradesh. This region is considered to be the most backward compared to the other regions of the state both in terms of infrastructure and natural resources. To add to this, communalism, casteism , illiteracy , superstitions have further made the lives of the people of this district miserable. One can now easily imagine how difficult conditions get when one faces such a huge population to cater to. The area of District is very large ie 10000 sq kms almost the size of a North Eastern state like Tripura and one fourth the area of a country like New Zealand.

Till “Jansamvad programme was started the office of the District Collector used to be flooded with the demands and complaints of the masses. However hard we tried , it seemed to be an impossible task to cater to and satisfy a hetrogeneous population of more than 2 million (as per 2001 census). Imparting information and getting feedback from the grass root level was a big task. To overcome these problems , “Jansamvad” was initiated. A programme to give an opportunity to the people of the district to address their demands and complaints to the District Collector directly and a programme for the various department heads to disseminate valuable information to the masses.

(b) Implementation

 b.      What were the key development and implementation steps and the chronology? No more than 500 words
Understanding and solving public grievances in the shortest possible time.
A devise to impart information to the masses regarding various schemes of government.
Make top ranking officials of administration more accessible to the masses.

The programme is aimed at facilitating the proper implementation of ongoing government schemes. The focus is kept limited to basics of good governance and people’s need like
enrolment in schools, treatment of diseases like Malaria, TB, etc. popularising of organing farming and vermicompost, percolation tanks, ponds, stop dams and use of constructed toilets among poor families. Besides, corrupt practices such as blackmarketing, hoarding , greasing palms etc were targeted. All this was made possible by making people aware of their rights and their right to complain in case of deprivation of their rights.

(c) Overcoming Obstacles

 c.      What were the main obstacles encountered? How were they overcome? No more than 500 words
The programme works on the simple formula of “Efficient and effective redressal of problems” The four step strategy –

1) Listen to the people (Demands / Complaints)
2) Give necessary information (Schemes / Rules)
3) Give necessary assistance (Formalities)
4) Give them speedy outputs (Documents/ Relief)


Although these four steps are not new to anybody but still one tends to miss something some where. This “missing energy” if found and brought to use can make a difference – as it has in Sagar district.

(d) Use of Resources

 d.      What resources were used for the initiative and what were its key benefits? In no more than 500 words, specify what were the financial, technical and human resources’ costs associated with this initiative. Describe how resources were mobilized
Some of the significant achievement : -

1. Enrolment figures in Primary and Secondary schools : -

2004-2005 2005-2006

460732 497905

2. Institutional delivery :- 24815 (2005-2006)

3. Total Sanitation Campaign : (2005-2006)

Toilets were constructed 34000 (By BPL Families)
32000 (By APL Families)

4. During the floods in July 2005 the information from this programme about preventing epidemics was so effective that only 2 deaths were occured. This was in contrast to average 30 deaths every year even in normal season.

5. Community driven programmes like Panchayati Raj System, Parent Teacher Association in SSA , Nutrition programme etc were given a special boost by hammering repeatedly about their roles and responsibility.

Sustainability and Transferability

  Is the initiative sustainable and transferable?
Since the programme is aired every week the employees of the district administration who are incharge of the delivery system are on their toes 24x7. Those citizens who by chance fail to listen to radio can log on to website jansamvad.org and lodge complaint.
The sheer fear of radio has instilled a sense of responsibility among the staff. In order to sustain and replicate the experiment senior officers of the administration visit various subdivision at given interval and check the delivery system.

Lessons Learned

 What are the impact of your initiative and the lessons learned?
This programme is aired every monday and so far 100 episodes in two years have been telecast in which 2047 complaints were received and out of which 1820 complaints disposed off. During the programme useful information about various government schemes is disseminated. Think tanks are working hard in improving this programme and the help of ICT enabled approaches have been started. On these lines we have also started a parallel Web Site approach for registering the complaints of the public and also letting them know the solutions to their complaints through the website.

With the advent of information technology, it has become possible for the common man to access global information . Keeping this in mind and overwhelming response from all walks of life district administration along with National Informatics Centre started web enabled Public Grievances Redressal Software which is operated in district wide network. Presently the software is being operated from all the blocks and tehsils by ICT enabled private kiosk owners. The complaints received through ‘phone-in’ dialogue are also kept on the web site so that the redressal of the complaints can be seen by the complainent on the web site also.

The web enabled software named as ‘Jansamvad’ is available on www.sagar.nic.in and is operated via different logins and passwords created for different types of users viz separate logins for kiosk operators, department heads , supervisors and administrator. The complaint can be lodged from any kiosk identified by administration. The complaint is studied by the supervisor and is marked to the concerned department head with a noting and the time frame in which it is to be disposed off. . In this way the complaint is transferred to the account of concerned department head. It is the responsibility of the department heads to check their accounts daily and feed the reply of the grievance in the stipulated time thus making this programme paperless. The administrator of the software can see the various statistical report and keep track of the complaints. The software is having one public login through which any individual can see the status of his complaint and also the reply of department head which has been provided for his complaint thus making this procedure completely transparent. The disposal status is regularly reviewed during Time Limit meeting every week.

So overall “Jansamvad” through All India Radio as well as website is leading towards a more transparent responsive and informative society in Sagar District. These initiatives have enhanced the credibility of the administration and reduced the gap between the ‘governed’ and the ‘governing’. The effectiveness of this programme has reduced the burden of administration by creating more eyes to act as ‘watchdogs’ and more hands to render support to humble and needy.

Contact Information

Institution Name:   Sagar District Administration
Institution Type:   Government Agency  
Contact Person:   Sheoshekhar Shukla
Title:   Collector  
Telephone/ Fax:   09826096029
Institution's / Project's Website:   07582-221900
E-mail:   sheoshekhar@gmail.com  
Address:   Collectorate
Postal Code:   470001
City:   Sagar
State/Province:   Madhya Pradesh
Country:   India

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