Gandhinagar, December 31 (IANS). To bridge the gap between citizens and the government, making maximum use of the existing potential of technology, the then Chief Minister of the state, Narendra Modi, started the ‘State Wide Attention on Grievances by Application of Technology’ (SWAGAAT) program on April 24, 2003.
The objective of this program was simple, yet powerful, to enable citizens to present their complaints directly to the highest levels of government without fear, delay and procedural hurdles. The scope of ‘Swagat’ online public grievance redressal program has expanded to district, tehsil and village levels. Today, Chief Minister Bhupendra Patel is effectively running this initiative. For 22 years since 2003, the ‘Swagat’ platform has been strengthening the faith of the citizens of Gujarat in the state government. This is confirmed by the fact that in the last 22 years, 99.10 percent of the applications received on this platform have been disposed of positively.
‘Swagat’ was designed as a proactive and people-centric platform. Now under the leadership of Chief Minister Bhupendra Patel, ‘Swagat’ platform has been developed with time and technology. Under the guidance of the Chief Minister, ‘Swagat 2.0’ auto escalation matrix method has been implemented in all the districts and all departments of the state on December 25, 2024 and ‘Swagat’ online mobile application has also been launched.
The Auto Escalation Matrix method was implemented in the Revenue and Panchayat Department and Patan and Kheda districts as a pilot project on the occasion of ‘Good Governance Day’ on December 25, 2023. After launching the pilot project, 90 percent of the total 21,540 applications were resolved positively within the time frame. After the successful pilot project, ‘Swagat 2.0’ was launched in all the districts on Good Governance Day, December 25, 2024.
Modern ‘reception’ systems are structured around an automatic escalation framework, which ensures that complaints do not get blocked at any stage. In ‘Swagat 2.0’, a time limit has been set to resolve the problems of the citizens in order to bring qualitative redressal in a fixed time frame. The applicant’s presentation or complaint is sent through online mode to the officer who has the direct responsibility for redressal. The concerned officer has to take necessary action against the applicant’s presentation within the prescribed time limit. Applicants are also informed through SMS about each step from registration to final redressal.
If the complaint is not resolved within the prescribed time limit, then after the completion of the time limit, the complaint is automatically auto escalated to the login of the officer one level above. After this the higher officer has to resolve the complaint. It is mandatory to resolve the complaint by the higher authority. The submission is considered to be finalized only after verification that the submission has been resolved satisfactorily and appropriately. Apart from this, if the applicant is not satisfied with the action taken regarding his complaint, he can also escalate the complaint to a higher level officer by giving feedback.
These applications are also closely monitored by the Chief Minister’s Office (CMO). Various monitoring dashboards have been prepared with the objective of providing timely redressal of the applications received in the portal. Apart from this, a performance dashboard has also been prepared to test the performance of the officers, on the basis of which information is available as to which type of complaints are received in large numbers in which district and what kind of policy changes are needed as per the complaints received from different districts of the state.
Many policy decisions have been taken through the ‘Swagat’ programme, which mainly include important decisions related to farmer-oriented, land acquisition, student-oriented, grazing land encroachment, re-survey and police.
The age-old problem of farmers was solved through the ‘Swagat’ program in Moddar village of Kutiyana tehsil of Porbandar district. Due to the absence of a bridge over the Sukhbhadar river between Moddar village and Paswari, farmers had to travel 15 kilometers to reach their fields for the last 40 years.
In this regard, the applicant Lakhmanbhai Navghanbhai Modera complained at the tehsil and district level and after this his problem reached the state level ‘Swagat’ program. The applicant had presented the difficulties faced by 118 farmers in their daily work of farming 3,600 bighas of land due to the absence of a bridge. After listening to his presentation, the Chief Minister directed the Roads and Buildings Secretary and Porbandal District Collector to immediately complete the bridge and road works, as a result of which a minor bridge, culvert and three kilometer road will be constructed between Moddar-Paswari at a cost of Rs 9 crore.
To understand the ‘Swagat’ online public grievance redressal programme, the ‘Swagat’ unit has been visited by the Secretary to the Government of India, delegations from the Chief Minister’s Offices of various states like Uttar Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Tripura, Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Andhra Pradesh etc. He also got information about implementing such a facility in his state.
–IANS
SK/ABM