A Look Back..
Analysis of grievances addressed by RajNivas in 2017.
Team RajNivas addressed over 13,075 complaints this year.
These came from all sources, such as Open House 5762, Email or Website 5692, by Whatsapp 1632, all hundreds of News Paper reports etc.
Maximum complaints (2492) were concerning civic issues such as Sanitation, Sewage, Garbage, Silt, Public Nuisance, Lack of Power, Street Lights, encroachments, dog, cattle, pig menace, need for trees pruning, pot holes, bad roads, and more.
The next highest was in the category of Service Matters, such as issues of postings, transfers, promotions, pensions, delays in service matters, regularisation of temporary appointments, non filling of vacancies, back door employments etc.
After this it was Dept of Education, such as concerning lack of teaching staff, school facilities, non availability of a principal or a head master etc.
Many other complaints were of corruption, medical admissions, wastage in high mast lights, wrong tenders, faulty procedures, or wastage and delays in implementation of projects and neglect of built assets etc.
On police front it was mostly of Rowdy extortions and threats, land grabbing and frauds.
Several other matters of nuisance by liquor shops, agricultural issues, road safety, family disputes, etc also came.
Team RajNivas grievance redressal team comprised of Secretary to LG, private secretary, chief grievance officer, PRO and a family counsellor, Lok Adalat para Legals and myself.
Daily Team RajNivas directly attended from 5Pm to 7 PM people coming on first come first serve basis in the Open House listening to their complaints.
The poorest of the poor, men, women and even children came. They were served a cup of tea at RajNivas while they waited to be heard.
For Karaikal , Mahe and Yanam, Team RajNivas conducts grievance hearing via a video conference every Friday 5-6 PM.
All these sources have been an enormous source of information and insight to Team RajNivas. It enabled focus on people's needs by connecting them with the concerned officers, field checks and most of all check the run away corruption and irregularities where officers thought they may escape.
Refusing to simply be a post office, the easy access to RajNivas made us receive considerable information from RTI activists based on authentic information.
Places and targets of weekend rounds came from Open House and other sources mentioned.
In all 128 Weekend rounds were conducted to directly see, resolve or highlight issues. In this Team RajNivas at times served despite opposition and even sabotage and hostility of the local leaders.
But it did not stop the effort. Itstrengthened the resolve. Good news is some of the same persons are now inviting team RajNivas to visit their problem areas.
The key Team RajNivas which worked relentlessly were, Dr Bascarane, Mr R Sridhar, Mrs Stella Marie The Counsellor, Protection officer from Social Welfare Dept.
It is this which made RajNivas a People Nivas.
