PRAYAS - (Online Public Grievance Monitoring System) http://kathua.nic.in/prayas/home.aspx
Project conceived, initiated, approved and implemented By
(Project HEAD)
Project Prepared By
(Nodal Officer)
Project Team Member
Jitendra Kumar Singh, IAS
Deputy Commissioner, Kathua
Rajesh Gupta
DIO NIC Kathua
Sahil Khajuria, CICO, Hiranagar

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Kathua District is situated at 32 0 17' to 32 0 55’ North Latitude and 75 0 70' to 76 0 16’ East longitude. The District is surrounded by Punjab in the South-East, Himachal Pradesh in North-East,
District Doda and Udhampur in North and NorthWest, Jammu in the West and Pakistan in the South West. Dogri is the main language spoken by the people of the district. Though the dogri spoken in some parts of the district has the influence of Punjabi tone also. The Language in the rural and hilly areas has maintained its native purity, accent and sweetness. However a very small section of the Population residing in Lohai-Malhar and
BANI Blocks also speaks Kashmiri. GOJRI is also spoken by the
Gujjar Community settled here and there.
Lohai-Malhar, Bani, Basohli and Billawar Blocks of Kathua district are the hilly and most of the villages of these blocks do not have th road connectivity. Some of the villages of these blocks are more than 20 to 30 Kms by foot.

District at a glance
NAME
Geographical Area
Area
No. of Sub-divisions
No. of Tehsils
No. of Blocks
UNIT MAGNITUDE
Sq.Kms
2502
Sq.Kms
727.32
Nos.
Nos
Nos
3 (Billawar, Basohli, Bani)
5 (Kathua, Hiranagar, Billawar, Basohli,
Bani)
8 (Kathua, Hiranagar, Barnoti, Billawar,
Lohai-Malhar, Basohli, Bani, Duggan)
No. of Villages
No. of Panchayats
No of Niabats
No. of patwar halqas
Population (2011 Census)
Nos.
Nos.
Nos
Nos
Nos
512
244
27
192
Male Female TOTAL
326109 290326 616435
Sex Ration (2011 Census)
Density of Population (2011)
Literacy %age
Nos
Nos
%age
877
246 persons per Sq Kms
73.50 %

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1. Difficult Terrain: Most of the part of the Lohai-Malhar, Bani,
Basohli and Billawar Blocks is hilly.
Bani – is 200 Kms (approx)from District HQ and it takes about 10-
12 hours to reach there. Most of the villages of Bani are by foot.
Basohli – is 85 Kms (approx)from District HQ and it takes about 3-
4 hours to reach there. Most of the villages of Basohli are by foot.
Lohai-Malhar – is 110 Kms (approx) from District HQ and it takes about 6-7 hours to reach at Katli and from there it is 5 Kms by foot
Most of the villages of of the block are by foot
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2. Lack of road connectivity: Due to which they are not in a position to lodge their grievances and their grievances are remain unheard.
Therefore administration remains ignorant about their demands and the apathy towards administration increases which always reflects in poor delivery of services to the common people.

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Officers behavior when it comes to dealing with common man and their grievances
Outdated and Out of use systems of grievance handling
Decreasing manpower
Inefficient human resource management systems

(An SMS based Online Public Grievance Monitoring System) http://kathua.nic.in/prayas/home.aspx
For redressal of public grievances, the District Development
Commissioner, Kathua along with all District Officers/Sectoral Officers listen to Public grievances through Speaker Phone installed at the
Conference Hall of DC Office Kathua every Wednesday between 10 Am to11 AM. Any person can call to the Deputy Commissioner at that time and his/her grievances are noted down and marked to the concerned
District officer for taking immediate action required to solve the grievances. Phone No. is: 01922- 238796 .
Name of the project
Project conceived, initiated, approved and implemented By
PRAYAS (Online Public Grievance
Monitoring System)
Jitendra Kumar Singh, IAS
Deputy Commissioner, Kathua
Project Prepared and Technical support provided By Rajesh Gupta, DIO NIC KATHUA
Suvash, NIC J&K State Unit
Project Start Date 22-05-2013
Total No. of Grievances registered as on date
No. of cases disposed
1020
900
No. of cases in process
No of cases not disposed
120
120

Good
Governance
Any Person,
Any Time
From Anywhere
Simple & user friendly
Improving
Delivery of
Public Services
01922 – 238796
PRAYAS Centre
Kathua (J&K)
Transparent
Handle
Unresolved
Complaints
Responsive
Effective

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Hoardings and wall paintings at important public places,
Broadcasting of PRAYAS Documentary at local TV channels, FM (AIR), Kathua
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Regular coverage of events, meetings, action taken through local print and electronic media .
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S.No
Item
1 Name of the project
4
Owner of the Project
Administrative Coordination
Technical Support &
Application Software
Project Execution By
Target Audience
Start Date
Sources of funds
Value
PRAYAS
(Online Grievance Monitoring System)
Deputy Commissioner, Kathua
Deputy Commissioner, Kathua
NIC Kathua, Unit
Deputy Commissioner, Kathua
District Administration and General Public
22-05-2013
District Administration

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The objective of the PRAYAS – Centre Kathua provides services during the office hours in an integrated manner in an efficient, transparent, easily accessible, responsive, user friendly, cost effective and time saving platform for Public grievances rederssal through the use of telecom/ IT services.
All Submissions at a single point through Landline/ Mobile Phone.
PRAYAS – Centre Kathua aims to provide qualitative and time bound delivery of Public services at common man’s door steps.
Committed date for the delivery of service.
PRAYAS – Centre Kathua shall prove its worth in providing additional important services:-
Help line for Disaster Management and mitigation
Nodal centre for cross checking the progress and quality of different development works and flagship projects of Government
Ultimate objective is to strengthen the concept of Good Governance by Restoring
Public Faith & Reliability in the Administrative Setup through Effective use of
Commonly Available ICT tools

IMPLEMENTATION OF PRAYAS
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Effective Public Grievance rederssal is the top most priority of the
District Administration. Deputy Commissioner Kathua (J&K) has developed a platform Known as “PRAYAS” with the technical support of NIC District Centre Kathua.
PRAYAS is a very honest effort to redress grievance of the remote and rural people like Bani, Lohai-malhar, Basohli, Billawar and other remote areas who could not afford to visit the District HQ to meet Deputy Commissioner. As it will cost more than Rs 500 to a person who has to come to Kathua from Bani tehsil to simple lodge his grievance. And if he is not able to meet Deputy commissioner on that day (as he may be on tour/meeting etc) then the poor complainant has to stay for 1 more day at District HQ which will again cost Rs 400-500 more. So, the complainant has to spent Rs
800-1000 and also his/her 3-4 days may be wasted to simply lodge his/ her grievance.
A common man of remote area is not familiar with government culture, procedure and the schemes being implemented for his benefits.
He has to visit from pillar to post for varied services of district administration.
He comes to know about non-completion/completeness of his application after a long delay.
A common man hesitates in visiting the Government offices due to which he becomes dependent over other people

SALIENT FEATURES OF PRAYAS Kathua CENTRE
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To provide a easily accessible, friendly, affordable, speedier and efficient interface between the government and the public.
To ensure greater transparency, efficiency, objectivity, accountability and speed that can help tackle most of the maladies of the government by providing efficient services to the public.
The Most Potent, Readily & Widely Available, User friendly, Cost-
Time-Labor Effective mode of communication available today is mobile. Kathua PRAYAS centre ensures best possible synergetic use of available telecom features
Regular Monitoring by Deputy Commissioner for delays beyond the specified dates

How PRAYAS Works

Sample Report
No. and Date Name of
Complainant
PRAYAS/2013/427
Dated 13-11-2013
Deepak Sharma,
R/o Bhaddu
9797628176
PRAYAS/2013/431
Dated 13-11-2013
Hans Raj,
R/o Dar Duggnu
9697698984
PRAYAS/2013/439
Dated 13-11-2013
Suresh Kumar,
Chhan Rorian,
9858596378
PRAYAS/2013/411
Dated 06-11-2013
Uplesh Andotra
Kathua
9419659117
Complaint Marked
To the
Officer
CEO Kathua
Reply Received
There is Middle School in Bhadduthere are 80 students but only 1 teacher and 1 is attached in ZEO
Office. Requested to kindly provide teacher in MS Bhaddu.
Ration is not available for the last 4 months in Dhar Dugnoo
AD CAPD
CEO Kathua replied that there are 47 students in Middle
School Bhaddu, and out of six sanctioned posts of teachers there are only two in the school namely Smt.
Monika Gupta and Sh. Ajay Dagoria. The post of master is also lying vacant since 21-10-2013. It is further submitted that none of the two teachers is attached to any institution or office
The TSO CA&PD Billawar has reported that the ration could not supplied to sale centre Dhar Dugganu due to the rainy season. The ration is being distributed to the rationees for 2months and remaining quota of 2 months is being issued to the rationees during 11/2013.
ACR Kathua replied that their case is under Partially damaged building And it shall be done within 1 week.
Our house was damaged during recent floods/ rains. My name also exists in the List prepared for compensation by thesildar. But I have not got any relief compensation where as others have got it.
In Village Badala, there is no water connection in Medical Sub-Centre which is an newly constructed building
(Rs 10 lacs)
AC Revenue
Kathua
CMO, XEN
PWD and XEN
PHE Kathua
Water connection installed in Medical Sub- Centre
Badala.

Government process re-engineering Information
PRAYAS – Centre Kathua shall prove its worth in providing additional important services :-
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The name of the database on which the e-Gov initiative is based
The name of the Operating System on which the database mounted
Web-server used, if any
Data center used for the initiative
SQL Server 2008
Windows Server 2008
Web server of NIC HQ
New Delhi
The application is housed in house and no third party Data center is in use

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Screenshots of the Website http://kathua.nic.in/static/misc/Grievances.htm

Status of Grievances can be cheked online

We welcome suggestions and queries if any for further betterment of the system. You can contact us at…
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jitsin100@gmail.com
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District Development Commissioner, Kathua along with all District Officers/
Sectoral Officers listening to Public grievances (11-06-2014)

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PRAYAS team extends personal thanks to
All concerned for
Recognizing, Supporting & Encouraging
Our initiative.