The situation appeared to turn a little feisty during an SC hearing on an PIL filed by Harsh Mander. Prashant Bhushan, who was appearing for activist Harsh Mander reportedly told the court that ‘nobody was helping migrant workers’ during the lockdown?
This led to sharp rebuke from Solicitor General Tushar Mehra who wondered: “: Who says nobody is helped, paid? Can't your organisation help these workers in any other way rather than filing PILs?”
This led Bhushan to retort: “The Petitioners have gone around & distributed food. But do you want us to feed 15 lakh people? 40% have said they don't have money. 90% said no ration received by them.”
This led the SC bench to observe: “Please suggest what are the other means to help. This is an unusual situation. Someone may say something is working well, someone may say it is not. We may pass directions, but it is for the Govt to do all that.”
Minister of State for PMO Jitendra Singh on Monday informed that over 25,000 COVID-19 related grievances have been redressed through portal in the last 20 days.
"Following the declaration of nationwide lockdown in the wake of corona pandemic, the grievance portal has received tremendous response from people from across the country in the last three weeks as a result of which, while on April 1, 332 COVID related grievances were registered by the public, within 15 days by April 16 the number increased to 5,566,"said Singh in a statement.
He complimented the Department of Public Grievances and the handlers of National Monitoring Dashboard for their prompt and round-the-clock follow up, which had made it possible to limit the average disposal time of a grievance to 1.57 days.
It is pertinent to mention that on the National Monitoring Dashboard in the grievance portal, an exclusive window was introduced for COVID-19 related grievances.
Meanwhile, about 14,982 of COVID related grievances have been sent to different state governments while other grievances were sent to different Central Ministries for redressal.
Specific focus is being given to grievance cases related to migrant labourers, health infrastructure and quarantine, food and civil supply-related issues, banking and financial sector issues, salary and, employee issues and school and higher education-related issues, he said.
