After 16 years, Odisha CM at people’s durbar: ‘Barrier between people and govt has been destroyed’

With a photograph of her missing son and a copy of an FIR lodged last year based on her complaint, Sanjukta Bharati from the Bari area of Odisha’s Jajpur district was among the hundreds of people who gathered outside the Chief Minister’s grievance cell as new Odisha CM Mohan Charan Majhi held his first grievance redress meeting in Bhubaneswar, remaining there for the entire first half of the workday.

This was the first time in 16 years that a Chief Minister was present at the grievance redress cell meeting. Though the mechanism was in place during the previous Biju Janata Dal (BJD) government too, Majhi’s predecessor Naveen Patnaik last attended a meeting of the CM’s grievance cell on August 16, 2008. Instead, he used to depute junior officers in the Chief Minister’s Office (CMO) to hear out people.

“My son was working as a plumber in Himachal Pradesh. On May 28 last year, he called us to inform us that he was travelling to Delhi from where he would board a train for home (Odisha) on May 30. Since then, he has been missing. I have lodged an FIR with Ramchandrapur police station but they said they can’t help since my son went missing in Delhi,” said Bharati, 58.

Bharati said she earlier tried to meet district police officials but failed. “I decided to come here after I came to know that the CM himself would attend the grievance redressal meeting,” she said.

According to the government, the CM will attend the meeting for two hours every Monday. District Collectors, Superintendents of Police (SPs), and various state government departments have also been directed to resume their grievance redress meetings every Monday at their respective offices. The administration along with the public grievance department has developed a