The Commonwealth Secretariat has recognized CPGRAMS as a state-of-the-art grievance redressal system for SMART Government and invited DARPG to make a presentation at the 3rd Biennial Pan-Commonwealth Heads of Public Service/Secretaries to Cabinet Meeting from April 22–24 at Marlborough House, London. The theme of the 3-day conference is “Institutionalization of SMART Government for Improving Service Delivery,” with focus on adopting AI in governance. The meeting is being attended by nearly 50 member countries of the Commonwealth.The Indian presentation on the Centralized Public Grievance Redress and Monitoring System (CPGRAMS) was made by V. Srinivas, Secretary, Department of Administrative Reforms and Public Grievances (DARPG), on April 23 and received commendation from Commonwealth Member countries as a global best practice.
Secretary General of the Commonwealth Patricia Scotland KC said, “CPGRAMS is a state-of-the-art grievance redressal system and a best practice of SMART government. The Commonwealth’s remaining 1.2 billion citizens can benefit from the adoption of the technology platform in the same way India’s 1.4 billion citizens have benefited.”
Member countries also saw the relevance of an effective grievance redressal system in their countries. Ambassador Anthony Muchiri, Chairman of the Public Service Commission of Kenya; Zena Syed Ahmad, Permanent Secretary of Services in Tanzania; Patrick Kangwa, Cabinet Secretary of Zambia; Emma Peloetletse, Permanent Secretary of Botswana; and other Cabinet Secretaries, Permanent Secretaries, and representatives of Uganda, Maldives, Grenada, among others. They highlighted CPGRAMS as a monumental reform and an effective tool for transformational governance.
A cordial and constructive bilateral meeting between Srinivas and Patricia Scotland KC, Secretary General, Commonwealth Secretariat was held on the side-lines of the 3-day conference.
Key highlights of the DARPG presentation
- The acknowledgment of technology’s potential to bridge the gap between citizens and government, empowering citizens, and optimizing transparency and accountability.
- The implementation of CPGRAMS’ 10-step reforms has resulted in significant improvement in quality of grievance redressal and reduction of timelines of grievance redressal.
- India has succeeded in redressal of over 1.5 lakh grievances per month and has mapped 1.02 lakh grievance officers on the CPGRAMS portal.
- The intelligent grievance monitoring dashboard and the tree dashboard which were developed using AI/ML practices were also presented to enable handling of disaggregated data sets enabling evidence-based policy making and data driven policy interventions.
- Government has approved an allocation of ₹128 crore for CPGRAMS ver 8.0 with an upgraded technology platform to be implemented over the next 2 years.
Patricia Scotland KC commented in a post on X saying, this was an “Inspiring discussion with Sec to Govt of #India @svoruganti1466 on AI-driven citizen grievance system & 80% e-gov success. We proposed a #Commonwealth heat map of SMART service uptake. Let’s harness tech for inclusive progress @DARPG_GoI.”
