Mamata Banerjee on Thursday launched an interface, Sorasori Mukhyamantri, to allow common citizens to lodge their grievances with her in the fastest possible way in an apparent bid to woo people from all walks of lives ahead of the 2023 rural polls and 2024 Lok Sabha polls.

“We are launching Sorasori Mukhyamantri to redress public grievances. We have a grievance redress cell but so far complaints could be lodged there through letters or mails. Now, grievances can be lodged through phone calls also. Grievances can be lodged by dialling the number (9137091370) between 9am and 6pm from Mondays to Saturdays,” said the Bengal chief minister.

The chief minister took care to elaborate why such an initiative was launched.

“I have held more than 550 review meetings. I have observed that many of the works remain pending owing to a lack of monitoring. People can call on this number and tell me their problems. All complaints will be treated equally and complaints will be redressed between seven to 15 days,” she said.

Sources in the state government said the chief minister realised the need for such a system after Trinamul leaders visited remote villages under the Didir Doot initiative launched by the party a few months back.

Sources said Mamata started receiving complaints through her party leaders that many poor villagers were deprived of services like getting caste certificates. Many villagers lacked drinking water facilities or proper roads.

Following the feedback, the top brass of the state government started discussions to find out the reason why these complaints did not reach authorities. As solutions were searched for, it was found that Didi Ke Bolo, a programme launched by Trinamul after the seeming debacle of 2019 Lok Sabha polls, had proven helpful to the authorities to get to know ground realities.

“As the programme (Didi Ke Bolo) was not in place after the 2021 Assembly polls, grievances that were lodged with Trinamul leaders visiting remote areas did not reach the government. At that time, it was planned that a similar programme could be launched by the government itself (not the party),” said a source.

The chief minister said she would monitor the process of redressing the grievances regularly and also asked the secretaries of the departments to be alert to resolving the grievances within seven to 15 days.

“I will monitor the grievances. Disposal of the grievances has to be done within the timeframe. The secretaries should also monitor (grievances) properly,” Mamata said.

The Sorasori Mukhyamantri platform comprises a call centre with 500 telecallers to receive calls and 100 validation personnel for field validation and analysis of the information received through calls.

Sources said that the ruling party had reaped the benefits of Didi Ke Bolo by redressing public grievances received through it. The result was visible in the 2021 Assembly polls where Trinamul defeated the BJP convincingly.

“Now, it is again felt that the chief minister’s grievance cell, which has received 22 lakh grievances and redressed more than 98 per cent of the grievances, has the ability to run the programme efficiently. The chief minister is not in a mood to take any chances ahead of the rural polls and Lok Sabha polls,” said a source.

The chief minister, however, made it clear that all complaints can’t be resolved immediately, particularly those related to rural housing and rural roads since the Centre has frozen funds for them.

“Those with grievances of not receiving houses have to wait for some time as the Centre did not release funds under the scheme. In the case of rural roads, we are developing 11,000km of rural roads with our own funds even though the Centre did not release funds,” she said.