Urban Local Bodies in Karnataka provide various civic services to the citizens. However most of them express their un-satisfaction with the procedures involved in receiving services or attending their grievances. They feel that a lot of time and money is spent in visiting the different departments of the civic agency frequently for getting their work done. This is due to numerous problems which they experience during their visit to the municipal office, such as a lack of cooperation received from municipal employees, behavior of the employees, congestion, lack of inter departmental coordination etc.

 

To address such basic issues of governance being experienced by the citizens in the municipalities, the Directorate of Municipal Administration has taken steps to promote the use of technology specifically targeting essential services. This system of grievance recording, tracking and solving the same is known as Public Grievances Redressal System (PGRS). The PGRS was launched in 1^st June 2005 by Directorate of Municipal Administration through an online application.  This system strengthens and builds accountability for effective governance.

 

Directorate of Municipal Administration, Government of Karnataka entrusted CMAK the task of evaluating the performance of PGR system in order to understand the success of functioning of the system. CMAK studied the entire module of PGR developed by the e - Governments foundation and prepared a detailed check list for evaluation.

 

PHASE I

A team from CMAK visited 11 Urban Local Bodies spread across the state to study and evaluate the performance of the PGR system. The main focus of this Phase I study was to understand the working of the system on ground. This study revealed the success of the system implemented v/s the design concept of the system. With this study an analytical framework has been evolved to monitor and improve the existing system both at the ULB level as well as at the Government level.

 

PHASE II

The monitoring process has to be continuous in order to make any system sustainable. With this in mind, CMAK was entrusted with the task of evaluating the performances of the 10 ULBs across the state.

The analytical frame work developed in Phase I Study is further improved and used in Phase II study. Based on learning’s from Phase II; CMAK will be continuously revising the format and take up the study based on the demand from DMA.

 This P.G.R evaluation report is prepared on based on the following components:

1.      Studying the complaint registration, redressal and tracking process (the whole mechanism) in each of the selected ULB.

2.      Interaction with citizens (sampling study) – over phone and actual visit to site

3.      Interaction with helpline staff and NGO manning the call centre.

4.      Interaction with Municipal Staff.

5.      Face-to-face interviews with citizens

6.      Recording the observations and collecting supporting documents

7.      Random checking of few complaints received and redressed through phones/on site inspection

 

To view PGR Report 2009 click here