AP CM’s SPANDANA Inspires Karnataka Government’s Prestigious IPGRS Program

Amaravati: Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister YS Jagan Mohan Reddy's trademark schemes and policies have been inspiring various state governments across the country. Village Volunteers had been the inspiration for Kerala and Rajasthan Government, Disha Act became an inspiration for Delhi Government and the recent one to join the list is the AP CM’s prestigious SPANDANA, the public Grievance redressal programme which is now the source of inspiration for the Karnataka government.

On 22nd March 2020, representatives from Karnataka Government comprising their Project Director, E-Governance Unit, Programme Manager, Centre for SMART Governance with other officers visited the Central SPANDANA Monitoring Unit at RTGS in the AP Secretariat. This was in the backdrop of their pursuit to replicate a similar robust public grievance system in Karnataka called iPGRS i.e., Integrated Public Grievance Redressal System. The Vision of SPANDANA and various technicalities of SPANDANA were explained to the team by the Special Officer to Chief Minister, Dr. M Hari Krishna, and by CEO RTGS, Vidya Sagar.

Dr. M Hari Krishna explained the Chief Minister's Vision behind the SPANDANA programme and shared the experiences of the Chief Minister during Padayatra. The Special Officer to Chief Minister also stressed upon the Chief Minister's idea of having a Human Face in the grievance redressal process and the need for Smile on the Face of every public functionary while interacting with the public.

The Karnataka team was fascinated by the robustness and processes involved in the SPANDANA portal. The Features like Grievance Reopen, Call Centre Feedback Calling, Dashboards to monitor the grievances remained key interest areas for the Karnataka team.

SPANDANA is the public grievance redressal programme of the government of Andhra Pradesh and the programme was conceptualized and named by the Andhra Chief Minister after being moved by the plight of citizens during his 3,648-kms long Padayatra. The SPANDANA was coined by the CM by himself during the 1st Cabinet meeting that he convened after being elected to power. According to him, SPANDANA is all about the response with responsibility and he believed in the concept that every petition made by the public is not a request but an order for all the public functionaries.

The primary objective of the SPANDANA programme aims at timely and Quality redressal of each and every grievance. The Departments and Districts use the SPANDANA portal to identify the major grievance areas and initiate process reforms based on the analysis and help the departments in bridging down the lacunae and process gaps existing within the departments. The Chief Minister himself reviews the SPANDANA Grievances with SPs and Collectors on a fortnightly basis. Also, the chief minister has entursted this responsibility of monitoring SPANDANA to the Secretary to CM, Special Officer to Hon’ble CM, and Secretary Planning.

This Vision about SPANDANA has inspired the Karnataka team and has expressed keen interest to know how the Chief Minister personally monitors this SPANDANA Programme. They praised the Efforts of the Hon’ble Chief Minister and the SPANDANA team in making this vision into reality. In addition, the Karnataka team has expressed their interest to know more about other priority programmes of the Government, Like the Grama/Ward Secretariats, DISHA, Ammavodi, RBK’s, etc. The officers also showed interest to visit a few secretariats and RBKs in their next visit and witness the idea of Governance at Doorsteps in reality.