Questions/Answers

Public Service delivery challenges are longstanding and endemic to all developing countries. It aggravates further in developing countries like India. The State has been coping with challenges such as the delay in service delivery, transparency and in some cases, corruption at the cutting edge, inefficiencies that have hit the disadvantaged people the most. Keeping this in mind, West Bengal State (having a population of 110 million) conceived a unique project to resolve citizen grievances in timely manner and also to utilize this data for transforming the governance through designing various policy interventions. This idea gave birth to “Monitoring of Programme Implementation and Grievance Project (MPIG Project)” in June’ 2019. Alongside resolving grievances within fixed service level, data analysis was carried out through ICT enabled Digital platform at https://cmo.wb.gov.in . This helped process re-engineering for different government schemes and bringing policy level changes like ‘Duare Sarkar’ (Government at doorstep) & Paray Samadhan’ (community level problem resolution) benefiting 62 million people, ‘Duare Ration’ (Public Distribution System at doorstep) benefiting 10 million people, ‘Pathashree’ (undertaking simultaneous construction/ repairing of roads) covering 14416 km and Bangla Sahayata Kendras (Single window enabling centers at grassroots) ensuring service delivery to more than 11 million people so far. The project relied on three pillars. Firstly, a comprehensive platform for lodging grievances pertaining to government programmes and its service delivery. Secondly, enabling people’s access to the government through Bangla Sahayata Kendras set up across the State coupled with government outreach campaign called Duare Sarkar (Government at the doorstep) being organized twice a year for delivering public services in camp mode. Thirdly, intensive analysis of data thus collected to understand public perceptions and gaps in government policies and procedures causing service delivery bottlenecks and then coming up with policy and procedural simplifications enabling responsive governance.

The project is aligned with Category 2, i.e. enhancing effectiveness of Public Institutions to reach SDGs. Mere disposal of grievances cannot achieve effectiveness of public institutions. The project does not aim at it either. It offers a platform that analyses grievances, categorizes them scheme, Department and field office wise, ensuring time bound service delivery through coordinated efforts of public service institutions bringing out the best from all Government actors. It identifies implementation and policy level gaps to enhance effectiveness of public institutions to achieve SDGs.The BSKs as enabling centers address issues of access in enhancing effectiveness of public institutions.

In a span of two years, this project facilitated disbursement of pensions to 0.6 million aged, widow and specially-able people (SDG1 &3), digital ration cards to over 3.7 million people (SDG2) and shelter to over 0.05 million families (SDG3). It has coordinated in providing universal health cover to over 13.5 million beneficiaries under ‘Swasthya Saathi’ (SDG3). Towards ensuring quality education, this project facilitated in granting 2.3 million scholarships to girl students, minority and backward communities (SDG4). The project felicitated in redressing 3491 grievances relating to domestic violence (SDG5) and 15.9 million women benefited under “Lakshmir Bhandar” Scheme (monthly financial assistance for basic household needs) (SDG5). The project ensured sanitation and drinking water facility in few thousand so far left outs (SDG6). Transparent public service delivery under various welfare schemes ensured legitimacy and trust of the system (SDG16.6). Ensuring ICT based one stop solution- systematic monitoring down the line for decentralized delivery- this project ensures transparency by reducing scope of corruption, bribery and discretion associated with SDGs target 16.5. In Bangla Sahayata Kendra (BSK), people can get services at zero service charges. Outreach campaign, “Duare Sarkar”, widened the scope of public service delivery to all at their door steps (SDG 10).

The project has contributed in building public trust in governance. It disposed more than 1.1 million grievances facilitating pensions to 0.6 million old, widow and physically challenged people, income assurance to 15.9 million women, health coverage to 13.5 million people, digital ration card to 3.7 million people. Thus,the project has paved for greater people’s participation in governance. Use of ICT in the Grievance redressal system, Duare Sarkar and BSKs make them environmentally sustainable initiatives. The fact that the project is completely demand driven and by now integrated with the Government machinery,both horizontally and vertically,makes the project sustainable.

Conventionally, Government schemes are formulated factoring in the people and an enabling environment in which the schemes relate to reality. Often, their remains shortfalls in achieving the goals. Significantly, these shortfalls and gaps in implementation are voiced through feedbacks we receive as grievances. This is exactly what the Project has been doing for last couple of years. It has converged heterogeneous departments into one single platform that establishes citizens’ rights with a premium on timely delivery of service. Analyzing 1.1 million public grievances and consequent policy level suggestions have helped in formulation of various micro-schemes for reaching out assistance to the people directly which include outreach campaigns like ‘Duare Sarkar’ (Government at doorstep) benefiting more than 62 million people; ‘Paray Samadhan’ solving more than 19400 community level issues, ‘Pathashree’ undertaking 14416 km of massive road construction/ repairing, “Bangla Awas Yojona” providing shelter to over 34000 families and Bangla Sahayata Kendras, set up at grassroots as enabling centers for direct access to public services and governance, delivering more than 11 million government services, showing both penetration and acceptability of the programmes.

The project has helped women in accessing public services through a single-window platform without taking the pain of visiting multiple field offices. Field study reveals that women participation in airing grievances has neared almost 45 percent. The project facilitated redressal of 3491 grievances relating to domestic violence addressing moreover 0.4 million grievances related to woman welfare and educational scholarship schemes like “Kanyashree, “Rupashree” and Widow Pensions etc. The outcome of grievance analysis has helped the Government formulate “Lakshmir Bhandar” Scheme (basic income assurance scheme for women-headed households) benefiting 15.9 million women from marginal and medium income group families.

The target group for this initiative is not restricted to any particular section of community but the entire population of the State. Field survey and data analysis reveal that 45% of the grievances were voiced by women. Moreover, 67% of service requests/ grievances come from rural areas whereas 33% come from urban areas. Social category wise grievance distribution shows uniform pattern with 52% being general caste, 20% from SC &ST and 28% from other Backward classes. The project has been successful in establishing a concerted and coordinated effort of 4526 public Institutions under single platform for delivering public service in a responsive, accountable and time bound manner. (1) Facilitating pensions to 0.6 million aged, widow and physically challenged people, (2) monthly financial assistance to 15.9 million women, health coverage to 13.5 million, (3) felicitating redressal of 3491 grievances relating to domestic violence, (4) helping 3.7 million people in getting digital ration cards, (5) 0.04 million families to get shelter, (6) reaching out to nearly 4.0 million people for providing food and shelter and another 2.0 million migrants with travel assistance during covid-19 crisis, all these endorse sustainable social and economic impact of this initiative across all sectors and actors.

Since the project was launched in June’2019, there have been regular monthly administrative review meetings with Districts and Heads of Departments, conducted by the highest administrative authority, the Chief Minister herself. This brought out implementation level gaps in service delivery mechanism. During her field visits, people used to raise grievances for intervention. This led the government to think of an initiative that would analyze people’s feedback, sort out the same through a dedicated platform and thus come up with findings for policy level interventions. “Monitoring of Programme Implementation & Grievance Cell” was set up under Chief Minister’s Office to oversee the project with dedicated mail ID: wbcmro@gmail.com, toll free number 18003458244, SMS facility at 9073300524, and a hugely popular call center ‘Didi Ke Bolo’ (Talk to your Sister) at 9137091370 with 50 parallel connections. An online portal (https://cmo.wb.gov.in/) was launched in October’2019 for better management and data analysis. Since then, the system has continually been upgraded incorporating ICT tools such as dynamic dashboard, grievance tracker, GIS mapping. Gradually, the cell has transformed from a grievance redressal platform to programme monitoring and policy watch dog of the Government. During first 6 months, up to December’2019, the Cell received 30,897 grievances and with more publicity and increased access of common people through call center, the figure reached 9,49,840 in year 2020 .The initiative has come up with policy prescriptions helping the government formulate micro-schemes including ‘Duare Sarkar’ (Government at doorstep), ‘Duare Ration’ (Public Distribution System at doorstep), ‘Paray Samadhan’ (supra-local problem resolution), ‘Pathashree’ (undertaking road construction/ repairing simultaneously across the State), Sneher Paras (Special assistance for stranded migrants during COVID 19 lockdown), Bangla Sahayata Kendras (Single window service delivery platform at grassroots) which have been able to minimize grievances significantly in 2021. Presently,the figure of grievances has come down to 1,31,196.

Any initiative that brings in changes encounters with resistance to change. This project also faced initial distrust of people and an uncomfortable “go slow” approach of field level actors in the initial stages. Publicity campaigns, project’s resilience during crisis situations, success stories, newspaper testimonials, massive outreach, robust and prompt feedback mechanism helped in building public trust. Alignment of 4526 administrative units under one platform has never been an easy task. But inclusion of the Grievance Redressal Project as development mandate by the Chief Minister helped unfreeze the bureaucratic resistance and public mistrust.

The West Bengal Experience could reap significant benefits from the project. Considerable data was churned to bring to light useful insights on gaps in implementation voiced through public grievances. New schemes have been rolled out to address needs of the people in a more effective way than before. The interesting innovation in this has been re-engineering of government processes to address systemic deficiencies, leading to genesis of citizen-centric programmes such as the Duare Sarkar (Government at Doorsteps)/Paray Samadhan (Solution for Community Problems). Government’s efforts of reaching out to the remotest and disadvantaged people finds institutional expression in Bangla Sahayata Kendras.

We have studied all major Grievance Redressal initiatives in India and abroad including Kerala’s “CM’s Public Grievance redressal cell” (http://cmo.kerala.gov.in/), Maharashtra’s “Grievance redressal portal” (https://grievances.maharashtra.gov.in/en), Odisha’s E-Abhijoga (https://www.gaodisha.gov.in/node/727), and the grievance redressal module of Kenya (Huduma). We took the best parts of these models and aligned them to our requirement in building the architecture of this project. Over the time, the system went on getting itself refurbished with inputs and insights we received from policy level implementations.

The base of the initiative is Big data, managed with data analytics algorithms, developed using python with Anaconda data frame. Moreover, high-end technology like NoSQL MongoDB, Node JS with big data technology is used for optimum server performance, enabling better user experience. GIS mapping with open source QGIS mapping technology is used to locate Bangla Sahayata Kendras and GPS tracking mechanism to capture real time activities of BSK operators. Load balancing using Node server processor core management technique enables optimum and speedy access of the server, which increases responsiveness of the portal and micro services ensure robustness of the platform.

The policy prescriptions of grievance redressal project have helped in formulation of many micro-schemes for providing assistance to the people directly like “Duare Sarkar” (Government at doorstep), “Lakshmir Bhandar” (monthly income assurance scheme for women-headed households) or “Bangla Sahayata Kendras” (Single window service delivery platforms at grassroots). These schemes and projects are highly acclaimed across the nation and are being adopted or being discussed for adoption in other states in India. The “Duare Sarkar” campaign which was designed based on feedback from grievance redressal project is being held as a landmark public policy decision in the country. The “Duare Sarkar” model has been acclaimed nationally and is being adopted in Goa State in western part of India as “Sarkar Tumachaya Dari” (Government at your doorstep) programme. “Lakshmir Bhandar” project has reportedly been a political plank in the Elections to the Punjab State Assembly in India.

The proven efficiency of this project in dealing with more than 1.1 million grievances in a period of little more than 2 years is highly acclaimed by people, news and print media alike. A system working on the basic principles of responsive and accountable public service delivery pulling in a concerted and coordinated effort of all, can be replicated by many democratic institutions. Duare Sarkar (Government at doorstep) and Paray Samadhan’ (supra-local problem resolution) model where services are delivered in camp modes by converging all major departments is a prime example in inter-departmental coordination. This has already got attention in the country and is being replicated in few states. The Bangla Sahayata Kendras (BSKs) act as single window platform for citizens to get their services at the doorsteps. Within a year BSKs have delivered services to more than 10 million people, 92% of this coming from rural areas. So, as a comprehensive project with grievance redressal at its core with its analytics enabling responsive governance, along with single-window service delivery points at grassroots as citizen-interface, the project is fit to be replicated by democratic agencies in the country and abroad.

The initiative was built upon existing resources of government agencies involving a judicious mix of manpower, continuous skill development and their effective utilization. In addition, few specialized manpower in the form of 10 Consultants, 18 Data analysts, 3 Software Developers, having equal number of high-end terminals with logistics were set up. The Cell utilized service of call center consisting of 150 tele callers with supervisory managers. The Government engaged 7122 Data Entry Operators operating at “Bangla Sahayata Kendras” functioning as citizen interface both for receiving grievances and delivering public services from a single window spread across 23 Districts.

Reorganizing existing human resources coupled with continuous skill development are key to making the initiative sustainable over time. Grievance Redressal Project did not require much additional human resource. Except hiring few professionals for managing the State level Cell, the project is managed in districts by utilizing existing manpower. 7122 Data Entry Operators were hired to man Bangla Sahayata Kendras for providing service at grassroots. Outreach campaigns called “Duare Sarkar/Paray Samadhan” are organized by effective utilization of resources at district and sub-district levels. Inter-departmental coordination reduces the need for additional funding. Use of ICT has made the initiatives paperless and eco-friendly.

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External audit, undertaken by Pratichi (India) Trust, a well-known non-profit organization headed by Nobel laureate Amartya Sen, undertook extensive sample survey, interviews and case studies. Evaluation was done using primary and secondary data. The review of programmes involved several rounds of interactions with key stakeholders, the core component being analysis of data and field survey. Based on findings, Pratichi offered its recommendations. In the second phase, emphasis was laid on understanding quality of grievance redressal, stakeholder satisfactions and charting future course in terms of policy level changes suggested by Pratichi. Inputs from PRIs,media and professional documentations contributed to evaluation aswell.

Pratichi’s impact evaluation was based on a sample survey of randomly selected people with help of questionnaire, interviews and primary and secondary data analysis. The major indicators in the study are (1) Citizen awareness about public grievance system, (2) Timely grievance disposal, (3) Citizen satisfaction, (4) Nature of complaints with regional, gender based and social group variations (5) Performance in micro schemes and outreach camps formulated on policy suggestions by this Cell and (6) Effectiveness of BSKs as citizen interface Tools such as interviews, field surveys, ethnographic enquiries, case studies, investigative strategies, and telephone surveys were used.

The evaluation confirmed sustainable social and institutional impact of the initiative in following ways: 1. Reducing bureaucratic inertia in service delivery. 2. Reducing need of multiple visits to public offices by citizens. 3. Benefit of large-scale data analysis through ICT-enabled system to pinpoint implementation level gaps, vis-à-vis MIS in the conventional grievance redressal system. 4. 45% and 63% of complaints come from women and adult members of the families respectively. It endorses the initiative as acceptance and trust of people. Women’s vibrant participation in schemes such as ‘Kanyashree, ‘Rupashree’ and educational scholarships is aligned with the observation above. 5. Massive public response in micro schemes and outreach programmes formulated on basis of policy prescriptions of this Cell endorses the credibility and efficacy of this initiative. 6. The study recommends the Cell’s existing framework of using grievance inputs for policy re-engineering and transformation of governance to make the project effective and sustainable in the long run. 7. It highlighted the popularity and effectiveness of BSKs at grassroots as citizen interface. 8. The evaluation also indicates challenges like over dependence of citizen on the system and with rising expectations, people’s tendency to lodge grievances on very simple or personal issues.

Breaking away from the conventional top-down approach of redressal and reporting on grievances, the Grievance Redressal Project works on a close-knit partnership between citizens and field level implementing offices, bridging gaps between State level policy makers and District and Sub District level implementing authorities under different tiers and stages of implementation. The project uniquely connects implementing authorities in different tiers with the sole objective of reaching out to citizens by bringing public service closer to citizens. The project works on the data it pulls from grievances and connects with heads of administrative units in both civil and police interface. Analysis of Action Taken Reports (ATRs) throw up meaningful insights on implementation and procedural gaps as well as deficiencies in policy framework. Working on the inputs on gaps and bottlenecks, some of the finest people -driven programmes are conceived and effectively translated into affirmative action. Here the role of the Cell is one of aggregation, coordination and collaboration in the institutional landscape of public policy.

The project is a comprehensive system addressing grievance redressal through redressal cell and citizen service delivery through BSKs and Duare Sarkar camps. Going beyond grievances, the project delivers policy perceptions for bridging gaps between policy and field executions. The project has many stakeholders and hence collaboration, coordination and engagement become key components of this project. The project connects 53 departments at State level, 23 Civil Districts, 28 Police Districts, 6 Police Commissionerates and 4395 field offices. The citizen feedback was instrumental in designing the project. Further, the data analytics from Grievance Redressal Portal has been key in designing micro-level policy changes in partnership with major Government Departments for effective service delivery in fields. Duare Sarkar camps were organized with participation of field level functionaries of Government Departments, elected representatives, local self-government institutions and artisans delivering services in camp-mode to the targeted population in the remotest areas. Webel Technology Limited (WTL) and National Informatics Center (NIC) were the major technology partners in formulating the robust ICT set up. UNICEF was roped in as knowledge partner in formulating the project and its transformation into a major intervention. Pratichi (India) Trust evaluated the project.

The project has been evolving by incorporating changes that have made it more meaningful and relevant. Broadly, the lessons we learned are as follows: First, public offices are better managed with existing resources by judicious planning, incisive monitoring, and effective utilization of manpower resources. Secondly, the project went deeper by analyzing root causes of grievances and thereby, catching up a host of interventions such as strengthening existing service-delivery mechanisms, launching pin-pointed schemes and massing outreach campaigns through continuous process re-engineering enabling changes in governance. Thirdly, the response and trust we find reflected by citizens in the system has instilled confidence that governance can be transformed and made more accountable through simple but effective interventions in analyzing citizen’s feedback and giving them direct access to governance. Fourthly, it is important to listen as it is important reaching out, enhancing ease and access of citizens to public services. This is what makes governance responsive and accessible. We continue to integrate grievance redressal feedbacks into public service delivery module that is scalable and replicable across the States.