Prime Minister Office raps railways over complaints

New Delhi: The Prime Minister’s Office has pulled up the Indian Railways for sitting on a long list of complaints and grievances.

Flagging off the redressal of complaints and gri-evances as a top priority of the government, the PMO asked the railways to take immediate remedial steps and not sit on pending cases, which have been languishing for more than a year.

Nripendra Mishra, principal secretary to the PM, has asked Railway Board chairman Arunendra Ku-mar to ensure that the railways expedites the response time on redressal of complaints and grievances. In a letter to Mr Kumar, Mr Mishra asked him to ensure that queries raised by the PMO were acted upon swiftly.

The Prime Minister’s Office, sources said, has taken a grim view of the poor redressal mechanism in the Railways regarding complaints and grievances. It has been particularly unhappy with the long list of complaints and grievances pending with the Railways for over a year.

The department of personnel, public grievances and pensions, that is with the PM, has shared a list of pending cases of complaints/grievances with various units of the Railways.

The executive director of coaching, which deals with coaches of trains, has the maximum number of cases, which includes 363 languishing for more than a year.