PUBLIC RELATIONS, PUBLIC GRIEVANCES, ACCOUNTABILITY, PARTICIPATORY LEARNING – ROLE OF NGOs IN DEVELOPMENT
Simply stated, PR is the art and science of creating and maintaining purposeful relations with the public. Such relations must necessarily yield good results. Public Relations therefore, involves an understanding of the people i.e. people from various walks of life in relation to the organization with which PR personnel are concerned.
Public Relations means different things to different people. Theoreticians consider it a philosophical and moral concept. The PR practitioners see it as nothing more than ‘art of getting things done’. However, the basic purpose of PR and PR techniques is more or less the same in all sectors – Government, Public and Private Institutions. Nevertheless, there are certain aspects of PR that are specifically applicable to a given class of institutions.
In other words, PR is a way of decision-making. It is a key ingredient in the democratic process. It is effective motivation and two-way communication. For some, PR is a process of doing good work and taking credit for it. PR also involves image building. Some view PR as a mirror, which gives the organizations clientele a clear perspective of their relationship with the organization.
The nicer way to think of Public Relations is the way a bee pollinates in its area of operation: it flits here, there, then back again, never stopping, relentless in its duties.
PR activity is more often an invisible input; but all the same it is essential for the better working and understanding of an organization. Unless people know what your organization is doing and what its objectives are, they seldom can appreciate your efforts.
Meaning
a) Promotion of rapport and good will between a firm or institution and other persons, special public or the community at large through the distribution or interpretative material, the development of neighbourly interchange and the assessment of public reaction;
b) The degree of understanding and good will achieved between an individual, organization or institution and the public and the application of techniques for achieving this relationship;
c) The art or science of developing reciprocal understanding and good will and the professional staff entrusted with this task.
Definitions
Robert Heilib - Practice covering a lot of acreage, blurring out into advertising and sloping over into selling, dipping into publicity and touching or at least aspiring to the making of the public opinion itself.
Prof. Byron Christian – PR is a conscious effort to motivate or influence people, primarily through communication to think well of an organization, to respect it, to support it and to stick with it through trial and trouble.
Cutlip and Centre – PR is the management function, which evaluates public attitudes, identifies policies and procedures of an individual or an organization with public interest and executes a program of action to earn public understanding and acceptance.
WT Parry – PR means the development of cordial, amicable and therefore profitable relations between a business, industry, organization and the public it serves.
Rex Mardaw – PR means processes whereby an organization analyses the need and desires of all interest parties in order to conduct itself more responsively towards them
British Institute of Public Relations – PR is a deliberate, planned and sustained effort to establish and maintain mutual understanding between an organization and its public.
Nature & Scope
In a democratic society, all institutions are invested with public responsibilities. In a democracy the importance attached to public opinion is great because “vox populi, vox dei” (voice of people is voice of God). The rulers and organisations must accept accountability for all their actions that affects others. Today’s public opinion, though it may appear as light as air may become tomorrow’s legislation for better or for worse. The success of public relations is tied to public opinion. But public opinion is like an atmosphere. It is a fickle beast.
Therefore, a wise institution or an organization makes public relations a function of the management so that every decision is considered from the standpoint of its public impact. It should not be forgotten that responsible performance on the part of a Corporation, Government Agency, profit or non-profit organization is the foundation of sound public relationship.
A stage has been reached that every official shall have to practice public relations. If it is not feasible to practice PR it shall at least be possible to have a PR attitude towards the public they deal with.
Public Grievance
The synonyms of Grief are agony, anguish, gloom, heartache, misery, pain, sorrow, suffering, unhappiness, woe, despair, discontent, despondency, dissatisfaction, displeasure, etc
i) Individual Grievance: It shall be defined as any problem arising out of the interpretation, application, operation, administration, or alleged violation of the collective agreement and including any dispute.
ii) Group Grievance: shall be defined as any problem arising out of the interpretation, application, operation, administration, or alleged violation of the collective agreement, and including any dispute as to whether the difference is arbitrable, concerning two or more people.
iii) Policy Grievance: shall be defined as any problem arising out of the interpretation, application, operation, administration, or any contravention or alleged contravention of this agreement, and affecting either party and/or more than one individual in more than one Department.
Efforts of Government
Citizen charters, May I help you booths; Information counters; Guidance bureaus; Public Assistance Cells; Public Information Centres; Public Facilitation Centres; Dial your CM; Meet the Minister; Awareness camps; Prajala Vaddaku Palana; Event weeks, Safety weeks; Public Interest Advertisements; Institutional Advertisements; Soukaryam; e-Seva; Mee Kosam; Open Houses; Exhibitions; etc.
Redressal of public grievances
The poor record of most public in the area of prompt and effective redressal of public grievances is a major cause of public dissatisfaction and a subject of criticism by the elected representatives. Public grievances primarily arise out of the inaccessibility of officials’, failure to even acknowledge applications, non-enforcement of any kind of time limits, and unsympathetic attitude of officials at various levels. A note highlighting the areas of action is given below to enable Central and State Governments to review their existing system of redressal of public grievances, and institute measures not only for streamlining these, but also to monitor the steps taken to improve their efficacy.
EFFECTIVE AND SPEEDY PUBLIC GRIEVANCE REDRESSAL SYSTEM:
The poor record of most public agencies in the areas of prompt and effective redressal of public grievances is a major cause of public dissatisfaction and the subject of criticism by elected representatives. It is noticed that many of the Government Departments and their subordinate offices. Which have substantial public interface and where large number of public are required to go daily, do not display the required orientation to the needs and circumstances of the public, especially the weaker section of society, women and the handicapped.
It is also found that adequate facilities are often not available in the public offices for reception of the public seeking various types of information or with various queries and demands of services, and arrangements for seating and waiting of the public, water supply and sanitation, protection from rain, sun etc are insufficient or non existent in police stations and other public offices which the citizens are required to visit. There are often no display boards relating to information generally desired by the public on the location of offices and facilities, various procedures involved, fees, submission of forms, time taken in disposal .The names of grievance redressal officers are not often widely published, and these officers are also not accessible as stipulated to meet the public.
Apart from lack of facilities and friendly reception, the public grievances primarily arise out of inaccessibility of officials, failure to even acknowledge applications, unwarranted delays and non enforcement of time limits, lack of information, harassment and activities of middlemen, demand for speed money, ignorance of procedures and forms, and the unsympathetic attitudes of officials at all levels. In big cities, citizens are often required to travel long distances to visit different offices due to lack of decentralized locations at the ward level for providing information on dealing with complaints. The methods for payments of various taxes and service charges are often inconvenient, not suited to the working hours of such members of the public who do not have access to servants. As regards the villagers in dispersed villages throughout the district, they face great problems in approaching the tehsil and district offices for getting copies of records, licenses, payments, and applications under various government schemes.
State Governments have instituted systems of time bound redressal of citizens’ grievances, which are often monitored through computers and programmes like “Administration to the people” in Andhra Pradesh. The district officials are required in many states, like Tripura to visit villages and blocks together periodically in order to listen to the grievances of the people, and redress them on the spot. Ministers also convene Janata darbar. In Rajasthan it is jan sunvayee etc
The Department of Administrative Reforms and Public Grievances are monitoring the progress in respect of disposal of public grievances in the Central Government. The Directorate of Public Grievances in the Cabinet Secretariat deals with cases of individual grievances for Central agencies with a large public interface and has the power to call officials and the concerned files to give a Lok-Adalats to deal with complaints in the presence of the consumers. There are social audit panels of imminent citizens, which look into the quality of services of the Postal and Tele-Communications Department. There is an Ombudsman for the commercial banks. The Central Manual of Office Procedure provides for the fixation of time limits for dealing with public grievances, while the code of conduct rules provide for disciplinary action in case of discourteous behaviours or negligence in grievance redresal.
Similar arrangements can be considered at the state level apart from cells located in the office of Chief Ministers, as in fact is being done in states like Tamil Nadu, Karnataka and Haryana. This will help in high level attention systematic causes of grievances through delegation, decentralization, flexible norms; simplified procedures review of forms etc., The performance review of officials could incorporate attention to grievance redressal and public perception of the services of the agency.
The number and periodicity of contact for the people with Government Officers would be minimized, and the officers should allow for the flexible needs of the working population. Every department should choose a few priority areas from the citizen’s viewpoint for computerization and allow free access of the citizens to this information in this computer. Finally, every public body should have a well-defined mission statement spelling out standards of service provided to the public, such as garbage removal, water supply and power supply. The officials responsible for good work should be given recognition and reward, and the innovative practices should be widely disseminated.
The real issue however is the need to bring about a total change in the attitude of public servants towards redressal of public grievance at all levels and to pin point responsibility for action on grievance of the people. This is dependent internally on measures to improve their levels of motivation and morale through rewards for good work and punishment for deliberate negligence and through awards for suggestions. The senior officers should constantly supervise the staff at the cutting edge level in police stations, sub-division etc., every official in public offices should wear name badge.
PUBLIC FACILITATION CENTER SALIENT FEATURES
Ø Provide information regarding services, schemes and procedures through broachers, booklets reports etc., .
Ø Provide information regarding position of waiting list and applications through computer, screens updated every day, and through computerized query to departmental data base
Ø Provide information regarding matters, such as bill payment, registration, land/house allotment, payments or phone or personally to the public
Ø Forms which are to be utilized for various procedures should be available at the facilitation centre, even if the processing is to be done elsewhere
Ø Receive complaints, issue acknowledgement slips, indication the section dealing with the complaints
Ø A sufficiently senior officer is to man the facilitation centres with appropriate orientation, capable of speaking English and local language for handling customers, and knowledge of use of computers
Ø Time limits and other details be notified through display boards at the facilitation centres for completion of various procedures and for disposal of cases
Ø Ensure easy accessibility to facilitation centres for the customer and average citizen, and publicity regarding the location and hours of access
Ø Utilizing interactive voice system where feasible for enquiry response
Ø Benches and fans for the waiting public, especially the old and the handicapped.
CITIZEN CHARTER
The Spirit:
- Mahatma Gandhi
- Transparency + Accountability + Citizen Friendliness is Citizens Charter
- Good Governance is the Technology; Citizens Charter is the tool.
The citizen’s charter is a document prepared by the service provider in a clear and precise manner about the quality and method of delivery of services to the users of the service.
The purpose of the citizen’s charter is to:
a. Improve the quality of service to the public,
b. Give people more choice,
c. Tell people what kind of service to expect from the Govt. departments,
d. Make sure people know what to do if something goes wrong in the process of service delivery.
What is the definition of a complaint? Any expression of dissatisfaction, which needs a response. Complaint systems should be easily accessible and well publicized. A truly successful complaints system will ensure that people know how to complain and feel it is worthwhile to do so.
Before any one can make a complaint, they need to have certain information. This includes rights and responsibilities. People should be told not only what their rights are as receivers of public service, but also know their responsibilities. This can be done best in a clear statement given in the citizen’s charter.
Reviewing Complainants
Complainants should have the opportunity to have their complaint reviewed if they are dissatisfied with response. Each department should determine the best arrangement to suit that position.
People will only complain if they feel that the organization listens to their complaints and acts on them. They will not do so if they think that it will not bring any result. These organizations must make it clear to the public that complaints are welcomed and that information will be used to improve services.
Removing fear
People may not complain if they fear that the service will some-how single them out for harassment and punish them for complaining. This is particularly true, if the relationship between the user and the service puts the user in a potentially vulnerable position. Example: electricity, water, telephones etc., departments.
Handling complaints within the organization:
Each department should have procedures on dealing with complaints, which are clearly understood and followed by the staff. The procedures should be simple and enable speedy solutions to the complaint received.
Redress for a complaint can be the following:
- An apology
- An explanation
- An assurance that the same thing will not happen again
- Action taken to put things right,
- Financial compensation.
RULE NO.1: THE CUSTOMER IS ALWAYS RIGHT!
RULE NO.2: IF YOU FIND THE CUSTOMER IS WRONG THEN RETURN IMMEDIATELY TO RULE NO.1
-Stew Leonard
NON GOVT ORGANISATION (NGO)
An NGO is a non-profit making company. It is like any other Company registered with Registrar of Companies. The only one important difference is that it is not supposed to make profits. In other words, it does not exist for commercial gain. Non-profit company has been designed for voluntary work only. It provides all the advantages of a corporate form to a Development Organisation.
Today India is looking wide-eyed at the world. Indian NGOs are testing international waters. In such a situation, the non-profit company may be the logical choice for voluntary work in the third millennium. An existing Society is convertible into a company.
Though, the Registrar of Companies does not have clear statistics on NGOs, by the turn of the century, a total of 5,10,954 companies had been registered. However, we know that at least 17,942 companies of these are classified under 'Community Social Services'.
Conclusion
Public Relations profession has many tools. They are communication, publicity, advertisement etc. But the profession of public relations itself is an effective tool to handle public grievances. Stripped to its fundamentals, public relations is nothing but daily application of common sense, common knowledge, common decency and etiquette. Where better and sustained relations are maintained, there is no scope for grievances. Remember the poem from Sumathi Sathakam - “koorimi …. Neramulu… koorimi virasam….Neramule…….. nikkamu sumathi”
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Source: Books on Public Relations of Dr BR Ambedkar Opvarsity, SV University, IGNOU & Training Module on Reforms initiatives in Administration
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