No relief granted

This refers to the letter, 'Citizen’s Portal' (June 19, 2019) by Col (r) Riaz Jafri. The writer has expressed his dissatisfaction over delayed action on his complaints lodged on the Citizens Portal. Without his complaints being redressed, the authorities concerned have found the easier option of just mentioning “Initiated” and “Assigned” and that is all. More often than not in between these two replies one gets the feedback "assigned to …….” and after a full circle of passing the buck from one official/dept to another the ending remarks are either “Closed, relief granted” or “Closed, relief cannot be granted” without the problem being solved.

The establishment of the Citizen’s Portal by the PM was meant to provide satisfactory and timely relief to those citizens who suffer at the hands of incompetent and/or irresponsible government departments/officials. Early this year in January, I had placed four different complaints pertaining to Punjab, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and the Federal Capital Authority. While two of them are shown as “In Progress” for the last over six months, those regarding payment of motor vehicle tax at the ETO office Islamabad and another pertaining to KP regarding repair of a small patch of about 500 meters kutcha track near the Jehangira railway station have been closed with the remarks “Closed, relief granted” . No positive action to remedy the complaints was taken on either of the two complaints. When I reopened the complaint within the jurisdiction of the KP province, another reply came “Closed,no relief can be granted”. This is despite the fact that I had suggested to the concerned authorities through the Citizens Portal to grant us permission to carry out the work on a self-help basis. If this is how the Citizen’s Portal is managed, I can assure you it will lose the purpose for which it was established and might well be closed. The prime minister is therefore requested to please look into the working of the Citizens Portal to ensure it is managed professionally and timely action is taken on complaints/suggestions put on the portal by citizens.

Group Captain (r) Saeed Nawaz Khan

Rawalpindi