Ensure people’s needs are met, make govt services available to public, TN CM tells officials

Emphasising the need to take the government welfare schemes to people at their doorsteps, Tamil Nadu Chief Minister M K Stalin on Thursday directed the officials to ensure the people’s requirements are met promptly and also make the government services available to them. The volume of petitions received by both the revenue and police departments indicated that the expectations and needs from the public are high with regard to the services of these departments concerned, he said. ”Though this government is implementing numerous welfare schemes and several major initiatives with a long-term vision, it is important to fulfill the people’s requirements and demands. It is the responsibility of each and every department to make sure the government’s services reach the people in a time frame,” he said reviewing the status of petitions received from the members of the public, at the secretariat here. He said people are petitioning the Mudalvarin Mugavari Department, as the department officials or those at state or district levels have not redressed the grievances of the petitioners who sought their help or communicated their response.

The Mudalvarin Mugavari Department (IIPGCMS CM Helpline) is an inclusive, integrated and convenient public grievance redressal platform to file and track one’s grievances related to government services, schemes and civil issues. Shilpa Prabhakar Satheesh is the Special Officer of the department. ”As a result, the affected people are not reaping the full benefits of the grievance redressal mechanism. Hence, as far as possible, flex the technology to reply to the petitioners and reach out to them,” the Chief Minister said. The officials should provide an appropriate facility in the e-service for further appeal and take prompt action to provide a proper solution. ”Only when the petitions are respected and resolved, our duties shall be deemed to have been duly performed. In the case of the police, the petitions on financial fraud, family disputes, tenant problems, and land disputes should be scrutinised well and proper investigation carried out,” Stalin said. Expressing satisfaction that about 2.94 lakh petitions out of 3.42 lakh petitions received by him from the members of the public during his tour of the districts from January to this June-end have been resolved, the CM said nearly 86 percent of the petitions have been resolved but a solution should be found to all the grievances. He urged the officials to popularise the toll-free CM grievance cell no. 1100 to help the people to benefit. The Chief Minister himself interacted with a couple of petitioners to ascertain if the officials have really resolved the problems. Among them were a petitioner from Thanjavur district whose child was sanctioned Rs 22 lakh for liver transplant on June 19, and a student from Thovalai, Kanyakumari district, who was awarded education assistance of Rs 50,000 for pursuing the degree. The Chief Minister also interacted with district officials and urged them to perform more. He lauded the performance of Pennagaram tahsildar H Shaukat Ali and Alangulam Deputy Superintendent of Police J Jayapal for expeditiously settling the grievances. Revenue Minister K K S S R Ramachandran, Chief Secretary Shivdas Meena, Additional Chief Secretary \ Revenue Commissioner S K Prabhakar, Additional Chief Secretary, Revenue, Kumar Jayant, Director General of Police Shankar Jiwal, Commissioner of Land Administration S Nagarajan, and other officials participated.