Blaming official apathy for "inaction" and lack of remedial action on grievance day petitions received at the District Collectorate, Manikandan, a resident of Ramanathapuram area created a flutter in the collectorate, this morning by decorating his ears with flowers (Kaathula Poo in Tamil).
The young man who came to the Collectorate campus, by wearing strung flowers around his ears to denote the duplicity of the whole exercise of receiving Monday petitions at Collectorate campus on every Monday, said that petitions received do not always lead to redressal of grievances or remedial action.
"I have submitted a number of petitions with regard to my grievances in the past few months, and no action whatsoever was taken on those petitions, and my grievances have not been addressed" Manikandan told SimpliCity.
"The Public Petitioners day remains largely ineffective due to official apathy. Not all petitions are taken for official scrutiny and remedial actions are taken on it", the aggrieved petitioner complained.
Suggesting that the whole exercise should be overhauled and acknowledgement for petitions received should be handed over to the petitioners, he said this will help ensuring accountability on the part of the officials to take prompt action on the grievance petitions.
“The petitioners go from pillar to post to redress their grievances and finally come here to the Collectorate to petition the District Collector for their grievance redressal, but the whole exercise goes in vain when no remedial or follow up action is taken on petitions. Thus the submitted petitions are put in cold storage or dumped into the garbage bin, with no one noticing", Manikandan said.
"This amounts to duplicity or what is known in Tamil as “Kaathula Poo”. The official apathy should not defeat the purpose of well meaning grievance redressal mechanism like Public Grievances day", Manikandan said.