MUZAFFARABAD: Azad Jammu and Kashmir (AJK) Prime Minister Sardar Tanveer Ilyas here on Thursday inaugurated a special complaints and tracking portal, which was created to improve governance in the state.

The portal would provide people easy and direct access to the government besides lending them an opportunity to lodge complaints online and get their grievances addressed in due course of time, the premier was told at the inauguration ceremony.

Speaking on the occasion, PM Ilyas stressed the need for developing a mechanism for speedy redressal of grievances of overseas Kashmiris and locals.

The time frame for the first response on a complaint and subsequent steps for redressal should be fixed and a proper monitoring system for the purpose should be established in the PM secretariat, he said.

The prime minister asked his principal secretary and others concerned to ensure that the staff in Prime Minister’s Grievance Cell was well trained so that they could not only tackle issues in an efficient manner but also provide proper guidance to people reaching them online.

“In this era of information technology where the world has turned into a global village, we are still running with an outdated system that needs to be innovated,” he said, adding that Information Technology (IT) education would be promoted and provided to people in AJK.

Earlier, briefing the prime minister, IT Board Director General, Dr Khalid Rafiq said the user-friendly portal would enable the public to directly access the prime minister.

He informed the premier that the complaint portal and online applications had been developed by the IT Board itself, without putting any burden on the state exchequer, to enable people of all areas to register their grievances from home.

The complaints could also be filed to departments concerned through the portals, Mr Rafiq said.

Published in Dawn, April 7th, 2023