Government is to appoint nearly five lakh Grievance Redressal Officers for addressing consumer complaints to weed out corruption at lower levels.

This is provided in the draft Citizens' Right to Grievance Redress Bill. Participating in the Public Speak programme of All India Radio last night, Minister of State in the Prime Minister's office V Narayanswamy said that these officers will be given proper training to file consumer complaints.

Under the draft bill , consumer complaints needs to be remedied within 15 days. The Minister informed that consumers can approach the higher authority if their complaints are not addressed by the Grievance Redressal officer within 15 days.

These will then have to be redressed within a month. The draft bill also has the provision of imposing penalities on the defaulting officers if the complaints are not redressed within a specified time frame. Mr Narayanswamy informed that to ease the process of filing complaints, a strategy to file complaints online or through SMS is also being worked out.

Government has invited suggestions from the general public on the draft Citizens' Right to Grievance Redress Bill. Mr Narayanswamy said that he is hopeful that the bill will be passed in the Winter session of Parliament.