Samadhan

Citizen Voices For Accountable Governance And Service Delivery : A new start in Kalahandi District

Samadhan is a collaborative effort of Seba Jagat , Kalahandi district administration and VSO India. This is an internet-based platform primarily for citizens to directly demand and track their service entitlements under national and state government schemes. Your NREGA wage has not been fully paid, a mother has not received her Janani Suraksha Yojana money, an Anganwaadi worker is not opening the nutrition center everyday - citizens can take any such problem they are facing and send a simple text message to SAMADHAN. Once demands or complaints are registered, local administration will process the complaints and respond with appropriate action to resolve them. Citizens can track the status of their complaint through an ID number. After the government has taken action, a message is sent to the citizen requesting them to verify that the action has taken place. In Kalahandi district of Odisha it is started in the Collectorate with the support of District Collector and Administration, Kalahandi, Seba Jagat and VSO India.

What does SAMADHAN mean to the government?

The Government of India's ambitious development targets in the 11th Five Year Plan, and the Approach Paper to the 12th Five Year Plan are aligned with achieving the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs)- a set of development targets which India has promised to achieve by 2015. A number of policies and flagship programmes are in place to reduce poverty and inequality and provide quality education and health services as well as infrastructure to improve people's lives, and many government officials are directly and indirectly responsible for their implementation.

SAMADHAN is an internet-based tool to support the government in delivering the services to citizens in a more efficient, accountable and transparent manner. It enables two-way communications between the responsible government departments/officials and citizens and provides real-time feedback on the real situation of service delivery at the grassroots level which otherwise would have been difficult for the concerned departments to obtain and respond to in a timely manner. It also enhances accountability and transparency within the government as responsible government officials who are assigned as the focal point for SAMADHAN in their respective department are expected to provide updates on the progress in resolving each case, and citizens who have submitted the complaints can keep track of their own case and see the progress themselves. In the medium- and long-term, SAMADHAN will also help the government identify persistent bottlenecks, systematic constraints and other outstanding issues by analyzing the data and information about the submitted complaints and the processes of resolving those issues.

How to use SAMADHAN ?

  • Step 1: In each concerned department, a focal point for SAMADHAN is designated who in most instances can be grievance redressal officer.
  • Step 2: When a new complaint is verified and registered in SAMADHAN, the particular department focal point concerning the complaint received a SMS notifying the new case for his/her attention.
  • Step 3: The focal point official logs into SAMADHAN, using the user ID and password assigned to him/her.
  • Step 4: The focal point official acknowledges the case, and marks the case as "open".
  • Step 5: The focal point official takes appropriate actions including delegating it to appropriate staff to resolve the case.
  • Step 6: Once the case is resolved, the focal point official marks the case as resolved, which is also notified to the complainant by SMS.
  • In Kalahandi Samadhan Platform was inaugurated by Southern Division RDC ,Collector Kalahandi, Country Lead VSO India, a Bi-monthly Review meeting on the Progress of Samadhan is also conducted with NGO and concerned Depts. The district Collector has also given Circular for wall writing of Samadhan Mobile and land line no by all departments. The website of Samadhan is www.kalahandi.samadhan.org.in