Fraudulent Online Public Grievance Monitoring System of Delhi Government

The officials of Delhi Development Authority (DDA) and the Registrar Cooperative Societies (RCS) of Delhi Government have crossed all limits of crime and corruption.

By Rakesh Raman

Those who use the online Public Grievance Monitoring System (PGMS) of Delhi Government know that it is a deceptive system set up to hoodwink the public. 

The officials handling the complaints on PGMS are so naive and careless that they close a complaint just after sending it randomly to some other department. 

These PGMS officials act as if they are working in a post office to deliver public complaints from one department to another. They do not care if the grievances of the public are resolved or not. While the public grievances persist, the PGMS officials close the complaints arbitrarily. 

Even the “Citizen Remarks” and additional documents uploaded on PGMS are simply ignored by the PGMS officials as well as the accused officials. The complainant receives a follow-up call from the government call center which is mentioned in the “Citizen Feedback” column of PGMS when an official closes a case. 

However, the government officials are so corrupt that even when the complainant is not satisfied, they refuse to resolve the grievance of the complainant. In many cases, the officials against whom the complaints are filed do not know about them because the cases are closed after randomly sending the complaints to some random departments.

In some cases to get the complaints discarded, the accused officials file very brief, curt, and irrelevant responses to even comprehensive complaints. They do not take PGMS complaints seriously. As a result, no action is taken against the accused officials who keep committing crimes with impunity.

PGMS DECEIVES CITIZENS

Thus, the Delhi Government is running the online PGMS in a totally fraudulent manner to deceive innocent citizens who need the government help to get their problems resolved. 

Although the similar Listening Post service of the Lt. Governor (LG) of Delhi is equally flawed, here the focus is on the defects of PGMS of Delhi Government.

While the corrupt Delhi Government officials close public complaints arbitrarily, their blatant dereliction of duty shows that corruption is rampant in Delhi Government and Delhi has, in fact, become the corruption capital of India. 

Although corruption has become the lifeblood of top officials and junior functionaries in Delhi, it is highly unfortunate to note that the LG and the chief minister of Delhi are not taking any steps to stop corruption and punish the corrupt officials.

Since these corrupt officials are not being held accountable and jailed, they believe that corruption is their fundamental right. However, the junior as well as the senior officials of Delhi Development Authority (DDA) and the Registrar Cooperative Societies (RCS) of Delhi Government have crossed all limits of crime and corruption. Evidently after taking bribes, they break all types of laws and regulations with full impunity and without any fear of punishment. 

If you properly investigate the corruption of just DDA and RCS officials of Delhi Government, you will find that there is a huge crowd of officials who are brazenly corrupt. In fact, if you have to imprison just the corrupt DDA and RCS officials, their number would be so large that you will have to build a separate jail for them.

You can click here to watch a related YouTube video, which is also given below.

RECOMMENDATIONS FOR PGMS

Actually, the PGMS facility should work as a dedicated investigative department to study and understand the cases instead of blindly accepting misleading responses from the accused officials and closing the cases without any justification.

The PGMS – along with its officials – should act as a substitute to courts and handle the public complaints with a formal investigative process to satisfy the complainants completely instead of closing the cases abruptly.

If PGMS has to close a case, it should close it with a “Speaking Order” which has all the reasons for its decision to close the case instead of prosecuting the accused officials. 

The complainants should be given an opportunity to file their rejoinders and argue their cases in front of the jury. Also, allow the complainants to create their PGMS accounts with usernames and passwords.

Thus, the burden on courts and pendency of court cases will reduce. The workload of courts is increasing because the bureaucrats in government offices are not working honestly to resolve public complaints.

Therefore, the harassed citizens have no other option but to approach the courts. Since courts and judges are overworked, their judgments are either inordinately delayed or lack justice. As a result, the lawlessness is increasing exponentially in India.

RESPONSIBILITY OF PGMS OFFICIALS

As it exists today, the PGMS is a futile website which does not fulfill any of its objectives. Along with bringing the administrative changes to PGMS, there is also an immediate need to overhaul its user interface so that all the case communications – including the comments from the government officials and the complainants – appear in a table of rows and columns with date. 

The PGMS officials should learn to use emails and respond to public emails registered with PGMS. When the case is forwarded to some other department or an official closes / disposes of the case, the PGMS should automatically send an alert on the complaint’s mobile phone as well as the email registered with PGMS.

It should be the responsibility of the PGMS officials to properly analyze the complaints and the responses from the accused officials before announcing a decision in the form of a “Speaking Order” as described above. 

The PGMS officials should not show any haste in closing the case without fully satisfying the complainants. The careless PGMS officials as well as the back office officials must be punished for their dereliction of duty.

Thus, there is a need to revamp the online PGMS facility entirely instead of running it in a fraudulent manner. Similarly, the Listening Post service should also be redesigned and redeveloped. 

In order to stop corruption in Delhi, the corrupt officials and their accomplices must be jailed as early as possible because their presence in the public poses a serious threat to the citizens who want to live in a corruption-free environment.

By Rakesh Raman, who is a national award-winning journalist and social activist. He is the founder of a humanitarian organization RMN Foundation which is working in diverse areas to help the disadvantaged and distressed people in the society.

He also runs the “Clean House” anti-corruption social service which works like a community court to report about crime and corruption happening in Delhi’s group housing societies.