NCPRI pitches for grievance bill

There is a strong opposition to Anna Hazare's demand for bringing public grievances under the lokpal bill. Major political parties and a prominent civil society group, the National Campaign for People's Right to Information (NCPRI), has objected to his demand.

There is a strong opposition to Anna Hazare's demand for bringing public grievances under the lokpal bill. Major political parties and a prominent civil society group, the National Campaign for People's Right to Information (NCPRI), has objected to his demand.

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The NCPRI led by its members Aruna Roy-also a member of the National Advisory Council (NAC)-and Nikhil Dey organised a public hearing on the issue that had participation from some key political parties.

"We are for an effective redress of public grievances and citizens' charter. But we are against it being part of the lokpal bill, which is to deal with corruption," Nikhil Dey told HT.

The Union cabinet had last week approved the Citizens Rights to Grievances Redress Bill, 2011, which outlines the administration's obligations to citizens and fixes responsibility on officials. "Bringing redress of grievances under lokpal will burden the anti-corruption mechanism," Dey said.

He said the delay in delivery of service was not always a matter of corruption. "At times, the system is inefficient. So we cannot always say it's a corruption issue," he said.

However, Anna Hazare cites the "sense of the house" resolution to back his argument.

At the public hearing, Prakash Javadekar (BJP), Sandeep Dikshit (Congress), Pinaki Mishra (Biju Janata Dal) and Prosenjit Bose (CPM) favoured a separate law for grievance redress.