(a) Centralized Public Grievance Redress and Monitoring System (CPGRAMS) does not effectively address local level issues. Give…

(a) CPGRAMS and Local-Level Grievance Redressal

The Centralized Public Grievance Redress and Monitoring System (CPGRAMS), launched in 2007 and administered by the Department of Administrative Reforms and Public Grievances (DARPG), serves as a pan-India platform to uphold administrative accountability. However, its efficacy at the grassroots level exhibits structural and operational limitations. Structurally, CPGRAMS was designed predominantly for Union ministries and departments. Local self-governance issues under Panchayati Raj Institutions and Urban Local Bodies often fall under State jurisdiction (Seventh Schedule), creating jurisdictional mismatches when routed through a top-down federal portal. Last-mile digital connectivity gaps, linguistic barriers, and complex portal interfaces often exclude rural citizens, rendering the system distant from immediate civic realities. Consequently, localized state-level grievance architectures—such as Uttar Pradesh’s Jansunwai (IGRS), Madhya Pradesh’s CM Helpline 181, and Rajasthan’s Sampark portal—together with state Right to Public Services Acts (beginning with Madhya Pradesh in 2010) that fix time limits and penalties, have proven more responsive to day-to-day municipal, revenue, and block-level concerns. The 2nd ARC's 12th Report (Citizen Centric Administration, 2009) had already recommended decentralised grievance machinery, citizen charters with enforceable standards (the basis of Sevottam) and grievance officers in every office. The national Right of Citizens for Time Bound Delivery of Goods and Services Bill (2011) lapsed, leaving CPGRAMS without statutory teeth.

Conversely, CPGRAMS has evolved to bridge these grassroots divides. As part of the broader Digital India architecture, the integration of Sevottam framework principles has standardized quality benchmarks and citizen service charters. Recent iterations such as CPGRAMS 7.0 (2022) feature automated routing down to last-mile grievance officers, integration with state portals and Common Service Centres (CSCs), multilingual interfaces and citizen feedback calls, and DARPG's Grievance Redressal Assessment and Index ranks ministries on performance; average disposal times have fallen substantially, though many complaints are closed without the citizen being satisfied. Furthermore, centralized, data-driven dashboards facilitate real-time monitoring of redressal timelines, systemic root-cause analyses, and periodic administrative reforms, ensuring higher bureaucratic responsiveness across governance tiers.

(b) Aadhaar, Inclusive Governance, and Administrative Credibility

The Aadhaar initiative (UIDAI, 2009; Aadhaar Act, 2016), now covering well over 130 crore residents, has fundamentally altered India's welfare delivery paradigm by fostering inclusive governance, including by giving an identity document to many who had none. Leveraged through the Jan Dhan-Aadhaar-Mobile (JAM) trinity, it has underpinned Direct Benefit Transfer (DBT) across central and state welfare programmes. In social safety nets like the Public Distribution System (PDS), One Nation One Ration Card portability, and MGNREGA (now succeeded by the VB-G RAM G Act, 2025), Aadhaar-enabled payments and biometric verification have, by government estimates, saved several lakh crore rupees and curbed leakages, eliminated intermediary rent-seeking, and empowered unbanked and migrant beneficiaries through seamless wage and entitlement transfers.

From an administrative credibility perspective, Aadhaar introduced verifiable identity through biometric de-duplication, which the government reports has removed crores of duplicate and ghost beneficiaries from ration and pension rolls. However, this credibility is tempered by critical operational and constitutional challenges. Biometric mismatch, network downtime, and seeding errors have led to exclusion errors among vulnerable sections, including manual labourers and elderly citizens; reports of starvation deaths in Jharkhand in 2017-18 after ration denial for want of Aadhaar authentication, and deletion of MGNREGA job cards when Aadhaar-based payment became mandatory in 2024, sparked public concern. Furthermore, concerns regarding mass surveillance and digital privacy prompted the landmark Supreme Court ruling in Justice K.S. Puttaswamy (Retd.) v. Union of India (2018), which upheld Aadhaar for welfare subsidies and PAN linkage as a proportionate restriction on privacy, but struck down Section 57 (use by private companies) and barred mandatory linking with bank accounts, mobile numbers and school admissions, with Justice Chandrachud dissenting on the Act's passage as a money bill.

(c) Smart Policing and Community Policing

Modern law and order administration faces dual challenges: sophisticated cyber-enabled crime and socio-demographic friction. To tackle these, the 'SMART' policing framework outlined by the Prime Minister at the 2014 DGPs' conference (Strict and Sensitive, Modern and Mobile, Alert and Accountable, Reliable and Responsive, Trained and Techno-savvy) utilizes technological platforms like the Crime and Criminal Tracking Network & Systems (CCTNS) and the Inter-operable Criminal Justice System (ICJS), along with dedicated cybercrime units and predictive policing analytics.

The new criminal laws in force from July 2024 add e-FIRs, zero FIRs and mandatory forensic investigation for offences punishable with seven years or more (Section 176(3) of the BNSS). Simultaneously, community policing models like Kerala’s Janamaithri Suraksha (2008), Tamil Nadu’s Friends of Police (1993), Rajasthan's Community Liaison Groups and Mumbai's Mohalla Committees (formed after the 1992-93 riots) address grassroots societal vulnerabilities. By building institutional partnerships between citizens and local police stations, these initiatives mitigate trust deficits, foster communal harmony, and facilitate ground-level intelligence collection. Integrating smart technology with community engagement establishes a socio-technological synergy, enabling law enforcement to manage hybrid cyber-physical threats while maintaining a humane, citizen-centric posture.