Odisha Human Rights Commission's complaint management goes online

BHUBANESWAR: The complaint management system of the Odisha Human Rights Commission went hi-tech with the launch of Web-based Human Rights Complaint Management System (eHRCMS) here on Sunday.

Chief minister Naveen Patnaik inaugurated the system, which will work as a data sharing platform between OHRC and its national counterpart, National Human Rights Commission (NHRC).

"At times, complainants submit the same petition at OHRC and NHRC, leading to conflict in decisions. Through the online system, we can check the duplicity," OHRC registrar C R Mohapatra told TOI. The commission receives nearly 2,000 petitions from across the state in a year and disposes around 200 cases in a month.

"Until now, OHRC was sending letters by post to defaulters, which was time consuming. Now we have developed a software through which reminders would be shot off automatically through e-mails to the person concerned," said an officer of National Informatics Centre (NIC), a central government institution which provides e-government / e- governance solutions in the country.

eHRCMS would also improve the monitoring mechanism of recommendations made by the commission. Besides, complainants would now receive acknowledgement via SMS and e-mail soon after filing complaints at the OHRC. However, the complaint filing mechanism has remained manual as usual.

"Like before, complainants will either have to send their petitions by post or lodge them personally at the OHRC office. Later, they acknowledgement letters would be sent to them electronically," the NIC officer said, adding, "We will soon develop an online complaint filing mechanism also."

Though eHRCMS is aimed at simplifying the complaint management system, uncertainty looms large over its sustenance, thanks to acute shortage of skilled manpower at OHRC. "The commission is now relying on a few NIC officers to run the show. The government should appoint dedicated IT staff to manage it," said an officer. "Many of the employees here have either been appointed after their retirement from government service or come on deputation from different departments," he said.

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Odisha Human Rights Commission's complaint management goes online