Mumbai, June 29 (IANS) All the 18 Congress ministers in Maharashtra will deal with people’s grievances in a public interaction to be held at the party’s office here twice a week, a senior party leader Tuesday said.
‘The party’s ministers in the state cabinet shall meet people for at least two hours each Tuesday and Thursday and attend to their grievances. They shall be expected to promptly redress peoples’ problems wherever feasible,’ Maharashtra Pradesh Congress Committee president Manikrao Thakre told IANS this evening.
The bi-weekly programme of Congress ministers’ ‘janata darbar’ (people’s court) shall be kicked off by Chief Minister Ashok Chavan in Mumbai Thursday, Thakre said.
Though such public interactions are not new to the state, this is the first time in recent years that all the ministers of the Congress in the ruling Democratic Front alliance shall be part of the exercise.
The new programme is a joint initiative of Thakre and Chavan in which all party ministers shall take part by going to the party head office at Gandhi Bhavan on the specified days, party legislative council member Sanjay Dutt said.
Thakre said that for the ‘aam aadmi,’ (common man), it was extremely difficult to meet the ministers in Mantralaya, the state government headquarters in south Mumbai, since public entry is permitted only after 2 p.m.
Party office-bearers said that by the time the general public clears the security hurdles, bypass the bureaucratic hiccups and locate the minister concerned, it is already closing time.
Thakre said that there were many complaints that the people were unable to meet the elected ministers and hence could not get their problems resolved.
‘However, with the new initiative, we are hopeful of making a major change in public perception and also make the ministers accountable to the people,’ he pointed out.
Thakre said that after gauging the response in Mumbai, the MPCC would consider a proposal to make all the ministers spend a day each week going to the people in all the districts in the state to resolve problems.
Incidentally, it was in the early 1980s that then chief minister A.R. Antulay had initiated the concept of ‘janata darbars’.
Later, several other chief ministers had also attempted the exercise, and it was taken up by various ministers too.
