The Prime Minister’s Office is upgrading the ‘Hello Sarkar’ hotline into an integrated platform to register and resolve public complaints more efficiently.
The Office of the Prime Minister and Council of Ministers is preparing to upgrade ‘Hello Sarkar’ into an Integrated Citizen Complaint and Service Management System. This change aims to make handling public complaints faster, more transparent, and highly effective.
Krishna Sapkota, the Under-Secretary of the Hello Sarkar branch, shared that they have prepared a detailed draft action plan for discussion. Under the new proposal, complaints coming from different channels like phone calls, websites, Facebook, WhatsApp, Instagram, and emails will all be managed on a single portal.
Users will be able to file complaints directly to the concerned government office and track the progress of their issues. If they do not want to file it directly, the automated system of Hello Sarkar will route the complaint to the right office. The entire process of tracking progress and informing the service seeker will happen from one single platform.
He also said they planned to interconnecting the government call centers. Under this concept, if someone calls the free number 1111, their call will be forwarded directly to the specific ministry or department call center depending on the topic of complaint.
If the concerned office does not provide the service, the call will automatically return back to Hello Sarkar. This system is expected to end the hassle where citizens have to visit different offices multiple times for the same complaint and suggestion.
The system will also display history of past complaints and their current status. If a person files multiple complaints on the exact same topic, the system will merge them into one single complaint.
New Guidelines and Time Limits Set for Resolutions
According to Sapkota, the government has prepared a ‘Citizen Complaint and Integrated Service Management Directive’ to integrate this system across federal, provincial, and local levels.
The directive has proposed strict time limits to solve complaints. Emergency complaints must be addressed within 24 hours, highly urgent ones within three days, urgent ones within seven days, and general complaints within 15 days.
Once a complaint is solved, the system will notify the complainant. The complaint will only be closed after getting feedback from the user on whether the problem was actually solved. This will make Hello Sarkar a tool for policymaking and good governance rather than just a simple complaint registration center.
Complaints Increased by 321 Percent in One Year
The number of complaints at Hello Sarkar increased by 321 percent in the last fiscal year 2082/83 compared to the previous fiscal year 2081/82. In fiscal year 2081/82, there were 16,568 complaints, but this number jumped to 69,724 in fiscal year 2082/83, meaning 53,156 more complaints were added last year.
Under-Secretary Sapkota said this increase shows the public trust in current government. Over the last five fiscal years, Hello Sarkar registered 1,24,581 complaints. Out of these, 69,724 complaints came in fiscal year 2082/83 alone, which is about 56 percent of the five-year total.
In contrast, the previous four fiscal years from 2078/79 to 2081/82 saw a total of 54,857 complaints, which is less than the number of complaints received in just the single year of 2082/83.
Over 50,000 Complaints in Just Three Months
In the last three months, Hello Sarkar has registered more than 50,000 complaints. Out of 50,721 complaints received, 39,177 have been resolved.
Sapkota mentioned that 18,542 complaints were completely settled, while 547 remained unviewed. There were 1,642 complaints viewed, 1,327 in progress, 6,056 assigned but not yet viewed, and 2,446 complaints were incomplete, irrelevant, or unassigned.
The toll-free number of Hello Sarkar received 50,196 phone calls, and 40,016 of those calls were addressed.
For the current fiscal year, from Shrawan 1 to Shrawan 18, the system received 9,610 complaints, out of which 6,601 have been resolved. The official data clarified that these numbers do not include complaints received through social media platforms like Viber, WhatsApp, and email.
AI Disclaimer: This article was originally published on https://bajarkochirfar.com. It has been translated with the help of AI. For the best understanding and accurate facts, we recommend reading the original Nepali version.
