Indian Delegation from Department of Administrative Reforms & Public Grievances (DARPG) participates in the 3rd Biennial Pan-Commonwealth Heads of Public Services/ Secretaries to Cabinet meeting in London

The Commonwealth Secretariat had recognized CPGRAMS as a state-of-the-art grievance redressal system for SMART Government and invited DARPG to make a presentation at the 3rd Biennial Pan-Commonwealth Heads of Public Service/Secretaries to Cabinet Meeting from April 22–24, 2024, at Marlborough House, London. The theme of the 3-day conference is “Institutionalization of SMART Government for Improving Service Delivery,” with focus on adopting AI in governance. The meeting is being attended by nearly 50 member countries of the Commonwealth.

The Commonwealth Heads of Public Service/ Secretaries to Cabinet Meeting, Marlborough House, London on 22^nd -24^th April 2024.

The Indian presentation on the Centralized Public Grievance Redress and Monitoring System (CPGRAMS) was made by Shri V. Srinivas, Secretary, Department of Administrative Reforms and Public Grievances (DARPG), on April 23, 2024 and received commendation from Commonwealth Member countries as a global best practice. The Secretary General of the Commonwealth, Ms. Patricia Scotland KC said “CPGRAMS is a state-of-the-art grievance redressal system and a best practice of SMART government. The Commonwealth’s remaining 1.2 billion citizens can benefit from the adoption of the technology platform in the same way India’s 1.4 billion citizens have benefited.”

Member countries also saw the relevance of an effective grievance redressal system in their countries. Ambassador Anthony Muchiri, Chairman of the Public Service Commission of Kenya; Zena Syed Ahmad, Permanent Secretary of Services in Tanzania; Patrick Kangwa, Cabinet Secretary of Zambia; Emma Peloetletse, Permanent Secretary of Botswana; and other Cabinet Secretaries, Permanent Secretaries, and Representatives of Uganda, Maldives, Grenada, amongst others. They highlighted CPGRAMS as a monumental reform and an effective tool for transformational governance.

Bilateral meeting between Secretary DARPG Shri V.Srinivas and Secretary General Commonwealth Secretariat Ms. Patricia Scotland KC held on the side-lines of the 3^rd Commonwealth Meeting of Heads of Public Service/ Secretaries to the Cabinet

A cordial and constructive bilateral meeting between Shri V.Srinivas, Secretary, DARPG and Ms. Patricia Scotland KC, Secretary General, Commonwealth Secretariat was held on the side-lines of the 3-day conference.

Key highlights of the DARPG presentation included:

1. The acknowledgment of technology’s potential to bridge the gap between citizens and government, empowering citizens, and optimizing transparency and accountability.
2. The implementation of CPGRAMS’ 10-step reforms has resulted in significant improvement in quality of grievance redressal and reduction of timelines of grievance redressal.
3. India has succeeded in redressal of over 1.5 lac grievances/ month and has mapped 1.02 lac grievance officers on the CPGRAMS portal.
4. The intelligent grievance monitoring dashboard and the tree dashboard which were developed using AI/ ML practices were also presented to enable handling of disaggregated data sets enabling evidence-based policy making and data driven policy interventions.
5. Government has approved an allocation of Rs. 128 Cr for CPGRAMS ver 8.0 with an upgraded technology platform to be implemented over the next 2 years.