Pending citizen queries to be answered within 48 hours: Assam CM Himanta Biswa Sarma

Another historic decision of Dr. Himanta Biswa Sarma towards good governance.

To address the long-standing issue of citizens having to run after pillar to post to get their government files addressed, the state government of Assam led by Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma has added yet another landmark decision to its administrative reforms.

As per the latest addition of reforms, questions and discussions, and issues raised in the file by the citizen while filling in the regional and divisional offices, will be duly discussed and disposed of within 48 hours.

The government has been for long facing allegations of delay of disbursement of file ‘questions and answers’. 

In many cases it is often seen that in government files, the higher authorities instruct the lower level officer-staff to discuss supplementary questions or inquiries using the word "discuss". Such questions are seen to be asked repeatedly in the file. But there is no fixed time period for its reply. This is also a major obstacle in providing a fruitful service to the people on a specified basis. 

Practically it has been found that it is possible to take clear and proper decisions on time if the concerned officials call the staff and discuss them.

With the new decision in place, all pending tasks shall be submitted by the respective departments within 15 days in the State Secretariat.

The state government has instructed all concerned officials from the sub-division level to the secretariat on the directions of chief minister Dr Himanta Biswa Sarma.

Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma had announced Project Sadbhavana according to which all old cases pertaining to various departments at Janata Bhawan and in such cases with decisions pending for years, shall be disposed in an one time exercise for cases before May 2021 in a time bound manner by May 10, 2022. 

The government stated that the departments will use technology in completing this exercise. 

With the launching of portals that will be used for inviting response,  citizens will now be able to track the progress of the response in the portal itself.