JK Govt promoting participatory governance, policymaking

Srinagar, Apr 22: The J&K Government is building a strong partnership between citizens and the government for the promotion of participatory governance and policymaking.
J&K administration is trying its best to strengthen the democratic system at the grassroots level; encouraging public participation in the development process; implementing principles of Good Governance; providing inclusive qualitative education to all; creating more livelihood opportunities for the youth, besides making all the public services easily accessible to the people of J&K.
The Awaam ki Awaaz initiative of Lieutenant Governor Manoj Sinha is a novel initiative in J&K to address the grievances and issues of citizens as well as seeking suggestions of people for public welfare.
During the programme, the LG also highlights the progressive steps taken by the administration. The LG administration crafts a strategy to draft policies that are reflective of people’s aspirations received on Awaam ki Awaaz.
Whatever we are creating, we must lay a solid foundation for a society full of self-dignity, self-respect, and prosperity. Working in this direction, the UT Government, in the last 16 months, has tried to establish a new transparent, accountable, people-centric governance system. Efforts have been made through active programs towards the empowerment of the general public, said the Lt Governor.
Jammu and Kashmir Lieutenant Governor also launched Integrated Grievances Redressal and Monitoring System (JKIGRAMS) to create an interface with the public and focus on governance issues in the Union Territory. “It is a step towards gaining peoples’ trust. JK-IGRAMS will be an effective grievance redressal mechanism, which is the life and blood of any good governance system”, Sinha said after the launch.
According to official figures, 1,38,959 grievances have been registered since September 2020 and have been fully integrated with the Government of India’s CPIGRAMS.
“The overall disposal rate is 97 %. The disposal rate of Grievances increased from 52 % to 97 % since the inception of the LGs Mulaqat program in October 2020. 11 Mulaqat programs have been held so far in which 226 cases have been heard by the LG and 157 cases stand resolved while remaining are at advanced stages of resolution,” an official said.
Notably, Jammu & Kashmir grievance system has been integrated with the Central Grievance Portal, thus making it the first Union Territory of India to have its district-level grievance offices integrated with the Central Government Portal of CPGRAMS (Centralised Public Grievance Redress and Monitoring System).
In a significant effort to strengthen the governance mechanisms in Jammu & Kashmir, the Department of Administrative Reforms and Public Grievances (DARPG) in the Union Ministry of Personnel collaborated with the Union Territory Government of J&K to extend and establish Grievance Portal for online grievance redressal. The Jammu & Kashmir- Integrated Grievance Redress and Monitoring System (JK-IGRAMS) has been integrated with the offices of the District level in the Union Territory and also with the Central Portal.
Jammu and Kashmir administration launched three phases of Back to Village (B2V) programme. The “Phase-I of the B2V was an introductory and interactive programme to understand the people’s grievances and demands, while Phase-II focused on the devolution of powers to panchayats and tried to understand how these panchayats are functioning and what are the grievances and demands. Phase-III has been designed on the format for grievance redressal.
The three pillars of the B2V were the redressal of public grievances (Jan Sunvaiyee), public service delivery (Adhikar Abhiyan) and the delivery of development at Gram Panchayat level (Unat Gram Abhiyan). More than 12000 senior officers were deployed in the Gram Panchayats.
With this unique initiative of B2V, over 20,000 developmental works were identified directly by the people, 7000 identified works are already being executed, 19645 loan cases have been disbursed with Rs 407 crs sanctioned for youth entrepreneurs. Block Diwas is being organized every Wednesday at Block and Sub-Divisional Headquarters to listen to the grievances of public on regular basis, official data reveals.