While opinions may differ on the NDA government's performance on the economy and social reforms front, one area where there has been a sea change is the citadel of power in South Block, the Prime Minister's Office (PMO).

Led by tech-savvy Prime Minister Narendra Modi's online push, the office is now more in touch with the common man, and more efficiently dealing with personal petitions, than ever before. The transformation is perhaps best reflected in the surge in representations to the PMO's public grievance wing. Against an average of about one lakh petitions per year when the UPA was in power, it's now up to nearly 6 lakh petitions annually over the last two years. The principal reason behind this: the public grievance wing is now only a few mouse-clicks away, connected to petitioners directly through both the internet and text messaging.

The PMO is also dealing with petitions much faster-with a 50-member team filing and handling each petition electronically, and responding within two days on SMS and through online status updates. Applicants can now track their petitions, lodge reminders, and even see the action report generated by the departments concerned.

This substantive makeover is directly linked to a management redesign led by Modi and his officials soon after assuming office in May 2014. "The transformation of the grievance redressal system is rooted in the new management style of the PMO through process re-engineering," says Anurag Jain, a joint secretary in the PMO.

Soon after coming to power, Modi noticed that around 20 members of the public grievance wing were sitting in Rail Bhavan due to lack of space in South Block. Over the next few months, the process to free up office space to integrate the team began, while an execution plan was laid out for smoo-ther functioning and quick results.

Almost 200,000 files were checked, and about 60 per cent of them-some dating back to the 1960s-were disposed of. The total waste, including paperwork and unwanted furniture, was six truckloads. The 1,800 sq ft that was freed up allowed the public grievance wing to finally sit under one roof.

Then a swim lane flowchart was used to map each petition from arrival to disposal. This system, which segregates various processes into different lanes, revealed how long it took for a petition to move at every stage, and how this could be speeded up. An online petition platform was then created on the PM's official website, which was integrated with the centralised public grievance redressal and monitoring system (CPGRAMS), an online cell administered by the department of administrative reforms and public grievances (DARPG). This became part of the central mail management unit (CMMU) in the PMO's online redesign that ensured all such e-mails landed at the same place and could be monitored directly by the officers concerned.

These changes reduced reaction time considerably. In the past, petitions received on e-mails on multiple forums had to be downloaded and processed offline in physical files. This resulted in massive paperwork and made follow-up difficult. Today, all petitions can be tracked in real time. Ambuj Sharma, an under-secretary at the PMO, says disposal rate is over 80 per cent now.

Another advantage of this method is that the PMO is able to analyse the nature of complaints received over time, which helps in making policy decisions. For example, there was a rule in the Jan Dhan Yojana that if an ATM card-holder didn't use the facility in the first 45 days of account opening, the health insurance facility under the scheme would not be available to them. After a series of complaints, the period was extended to 90 days.

Officers at work. Photo: Chandradeep Kumar Officers at work. Photo: Chandradeep Kumar

Shashi Kumar, a 28-year-old helper in the Railways workshop at Sabarmati in Ahmedabad, tells the story of how the PMO came to his aid. A resident of a small village in Saharanpur district, he had appeared for the Group D (helper/peon) exam in the Railways in 2013. Though he passed the tests, in his final verification he was rejected wrongly on health grounds. He petitioned the PMO on December 10, 2015. Within a fortnight, his papers were re-verified and Kumar joined service in January 2016.

Apart from the reformed public grievance system, another big change is the management of the PM's National Relief Fund, where the sanction of funds for applicants suffering from poor health and in need of urgent treatment has been made much faster. In fact, a personal letter from the PM now goes to the applicant when the fund is sanctioned, and a prior intimation reaches him through an automated text message. For a PM who believes in "optimum results", that's saying a lot.

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