In a true participatory democracy, citizens and governments can have dialogues at various levels about various issues so that government initiatives really reflect citizen need and have the desired impact. With a new grievance redressal mechanism that taps into the power of the digital, called Jan Nigrani, the Rural Development Department of J&K sought to exemplify just this.

Mobiquel developed Jan Nigrani. This citizen-facing mobile application allows citizens to register grievances against government schemes such as MGNREGA, Swachh Bharat Abhiyan, IWMP, and others in minutes via easy-to-fill online forms. Grievance submissions are automatically mapped to the relevant chain of authority from field officers, to district officers, all the way through to the secretariat for the scheme of concern.

Through the same application, officials can take relevant action, and the complainant receives notifications each time this happens. At the end of the process, if the complainant is unsatisfied, they can re-open their grievance submission.

Without physical paperwork, both submitting and addressing grievances becomes a faster and lower- effort processes, and the benefits of addressing grievances with accountability become tangible.