'Grievance Redressal Could Be The Next RTI'

The National Campaign for the People’s Right to Information (NCPCRI) has said the grievance redressal Bill cleared by the Union Cabinet on Thursday could become a potential gamechanger, provided the government ensures that redressal can take place at the district level, and the principle of federalism is respected. 
    
The NCPRI, which includes Aruna Roy of the Rajasthan-based Mazdoor Kisan Shakti Sangathan (MKSS), was the organization that successfully campaigned for the Right to Information (RTI) Act, and has been pushing for several years for an effective grievance redressal bill. Such a bill was also one of the demands of the Anna Hazareled Lokpal movement. 
    
While welcoming the approval of the Right of Citizens for Time Bound Delivery of Goods and Services and Redressal of their Grievances Bill, 2011 by the union Cabinet, the NCPRI raised some potential problems. The text of the cleared Bill, which went to the Cabinet after going through a standing committee, is not publicly available, so members of the NCPRI clarified that the issues they were raising were based on 16 slides uploaded on the Prime Minister’s Facebook page. 
    
While several states, including Delhi, Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh and Bihar, already have legislations mandating that public services be delivered within a fixed timeframe, the NCPRI said that there was no conflict with the central Bill. “The central Bill not only guarantees time-bound delivery of goods and services, it also gives the citizen a redressal mechanism if they are not getting what is rightfully theirs. So while Delhi’s state Act might give the citizen the right to get a ration card within a certain number of days of applying for it, the central Bill will help a citizen who is not getting her rightful ration,” explained Anjali Bhardwaj, co-convener of the NCPRI. 
    
While a central Act could cover both central and state schemes, states didn’t necessarily need to repeal their laws as the citizen could have the choice whether to use the state or central Act as in the case of the RTI, said Nikhil Dey, co-convener of the NCPRI. “However there are two points over which there is a conflict with federalism: one is the provision that gives the citizen the right to approach the central public grievance commission if she is aggrieved by a decision of the state commission. The other is that orders passed by the central commission must be enforced by the state commission,” said Dey. Many states would oppose these provisions, and the government should amend them to ensure smooth passage for the Bill, he added.