Report by Badal Tah, Rayagada, July 12: Never before in the history of grievance redressal in Rayagada a Collector has moved beyond the four walls of the hall in which the redressal takes place. But, present collector Swadha Dev Singh has made a difference. After hearing grievances of the public in the block conference halls, she moves to nearby villages to have a reality check of the flagship programmes of the Govt. Spends 1st half inside the hall at the block headquarters and 2nd half in a village. She uses the event of block level grievance redressal as an opportunity to assess the implementation at ground zero.
Last Monday, after the hearings at Kalyan Singhpur block office, she moved to Parsali village to interact with Dangaria tribes men and women belonging to PVTG. She monitored a nursery in Sunakhandi village raised by women members of SHG & so also a poultry farm promoted by Odisha Livelihood Mission(OLM), appraised the programmes implemented by Dangaria Kandha Development Agency (DKDA) after distribution of Record of Rights or pattas under forest rights act & visited the tribal girls’ residential school to be transformed under 5T.
When many other district level officers, after the hearings at block office, return back to district headquarters, Singh moves to nearby habitations. A transect walk alongwith local villagers through a road usually not traversed by senior govt officers has brought her closer to the last non-vocal person to speak out. Thus she has taken grievance hearing mechanism to the last person of the village with a human touch.
“This process of block level hearing by Collector Singh coupled with a review of programmes in nearby villages must set a trend for other officers to follow”, opined Ranjan Ratha, a senior member of Rayagada Nagarika Manch.
Comments are closed.