Grievance Redressal on implementation of GST Law in India.

Grievance Redressal On Implementation of GST Law In India

Recently received a communication from a reputed association from New Delhi that the Hon’ble Union Finance Minister discussed in a meeting with Stake Holders at Delhi on problems in implementation of GST and most of the stakeholders expressed their dissatisfaction about implementation of GST and solvation of difficulties faced by the stakeholders at root level in implementation of GST in India. Based on that suggestion FM decided to constitute “Grievance Redressal” at State / Zonal level to know and solve the difficulties by the stakeholders from time to time for smooth implementation of the Indirect Tax system in India. 

Meaning Of Grievance Redressal-

Grievance Redressal is a management- and governance-related process used commonly in India. While the term "Grievance Redressal" primarily covers the receipt and processing of complaints from citizens and consumers, a wider definition includes actions taken on any issue raised by them to avail services more effectively.

• Grievance Redressal mechanism is mandated in Government agencies and departments that are directly involved with serving citizens and organizations. Usually, a Public Relations Officer (PRO) is designated with the role of receiving complaints and initiating corrective action, but this mechanism often fails on account of lack of authority vested in the PRO over officers of various capacities

• Now the Government of India has made efforts to systematize the nature of grievance redressal through legislation. Recently CBIC has issued notification No. 20/10/16/2018-GST (P1.1) dated 24th December 2019 to Constitute of Grievance Redressal Committees at Zonal/State Level for redressal of Grievance of taxpayers on GST related Issues as per the decision was taken in GST Council Meeting dated. 12.2019. It’s really a good step to know the difficulties faced by the stakeholders at the root level and solve such difficulties for better implementation of GST in India.

Grievance Redressal typically covers the following types of complaints:

• Service Unavailability
• Non-Delivery against Commitment
• Excessive Delays
• Injustice concerns (such as over race, caste, sex)
• Staff Misbehaviour
• Malpractice

A wider definition of grievance redressal covers:

• Malfunctions under Warranty coverage
• Product Support issues
• Citizen Vigilance reports
• Employee Disputes

Generally, Grievance Redressal is working as below at State Level

Government Departments define their own process flows for grievances redressal. These are rarely made known to the stakeholders in case of Government usually share voluntarily or by mandate, the hierarchy of officers responsible for taking corrective It is depending on the desire to correct as well as the level of transparency of the Government.

Grievance redressal flow can include the following steps.

1) Input Acceptance- Customers convey their grievance to the organization through feedback forms, letters, registered communications, emails, etc. These inputs may be submitted by mail, over the Internet, or in person.

2) Acknowledgment & Status Tracking- Stakeholders tend to develop much greater confidence and feedback mechanism if they are given a formal The acknowledgment could be by SMS and Email. Simply by publicly posting their message on the appropriate forum. Such form responds with acknowledgments with unique tracking numbers. These may be used by stakeholders to check the status of action taken on their complaint.

3) Forwarding- Paper-based feedback as well as standard feedback forms on websites usually forward inputs to a single officer or email address. This naturally causes scope for delay or failure to reach the right persons. However, smarter ticketing systems sort grievances based on their classification and then redirect each to their relevant executive(s) instantly.

4) Action- Computerized and web-based systems have an advantage over paper-based systems as they can alert the reporter immediately upon completion of the action, as marked by the executive in charge.

5) Verification- Customer may certify, if applicable and asked, whether the corrective action taken on their grievance satisfies them or is not substantial enough. Should it not be, the complaint may be marked as pending again, or be forwarded to a more senior officer in escalated form.

6) Mesurments- 

The effectiveness of the implementation of a grievance redressal mechanism can be calculated with the following parameters:

• Count of cases received
• Nature of cases received
• Acceptance of anonymous feedback
• The ratio of false inputs
• Time is taken for corrective action
• Escalations required
• Confirmations & rejections after completion
• Repeat nature of grievances

7) Challenges-

Traditional Grievance Redressal mechanisms tend to fail, or are very ineffective, on account of some of these causes:

• Unavailability or Difficulty to access means to report grievances, at times done so purposefully, or due to lack of priority
• Lack of authority of PRO over relevant departments and executives in Government organizations
• The disconnect of senior decision-maker executives with end customers
• Non-motivation of front-end managers to forward negative feedback to higher-ups
• Fear of citizens/consumers to report malpractice about officers with substantial authority
• The inability of smaller private organizations to set up computerized mechanisms
• Inaccuracy and spamming of feedback forms, driving false impressions
• Delayed feedback acceptance, as feedback is taken after service has been provided, while corrective action may be taken typically during the delivery of service