Till a few years ago both US and India had beautiful interfaces to people from State Administration. In US, it was called ‘Voice of the People’ and in India it was called CpGrams (Centralized Public Grievances) aka PGPortal. Ever since Obama quit the office and Trump took over, the Voice of the People was taken down.

However starting January, PgPortal has got a beautiful facelift. Unlike the previous version of anonymous posting and need to copy paste the grievances now everything is tracked and consolidated with a username and password. Technologywise it is powered by ASP.NET MVC.

A few suggestions and bug reports we shared to Department of Administrative Reforms regarding the new Pgportal as below.

  1. ARNPG/E/2018/00033:  The new version of PgPortal seems to be untested and buggy. 1) During grievance posting if security code mismatches it is erasing all the values forcing the user to re type all the message. 2) Posting a second grievance in a single session it throws a server error and logs out.
  2. ARNPG/E/2018/00122  Dear Team, While I take a moment to appreciate the PgPortal team of NIC for the good revamp and overhaul there are a few things which have been remainining untested and is an irritant to the user. For example, after registering a grievance there is a home button and clicking that goes to AspxError page Not Found http://pgportal.gov.in/Error/NotFound?aspxerrorpath=/DashBoard (Status: Acknowledged)
    3) ARNPG/E/2018/00123 The newly launched version of PgPortal has a major user experience issue. If the security code (aka) captcha is wrong entire form is wiped and an error message is shown Error Please enter valid security code. The previous version of PgPortal elegantly managed this condition because the validations were done through Ajax Calls. Kindly have a developer to fix this issue at once.

    4) ARNPG/E/2018/00124 Dear Team, The newly launched PgPortal has a major user experience issue. The phone number field has autoinserted spaces (trailing) as a a result on submission the following message is shown Please enter no more than 12 characters. I believe since you are using aspnet mvc the developer can trim the space when data binding the value from the controller to the view. Additionally when you correct the values by backspacing in this field and when there is a single trailing space an ambigous error messagelike Please enter valid Phone Number is shown. Kindly have a developer to correct these issues asap
    5) ARNPG/E/2018/00137 Team, The new version of CpGrams is blocking the following characters which causes issues in posting readable grievance text. 1) Hyphen is blocked 2) Apostrophe character (single quote) is blocked We are getting error message like below when the grievance contains these characters Alphabet AZ, az, number 09 and special characters Can you ensure that these characters are whitelisted and grievances with these characters are allowed to be posted in CpGrams.
    6) ARNPG/E/2018/00138 Cpgrams Team, Even though there are a few characters which are allowed in grievance not all whitelisted characters are actually allowed. For example even copy pasting the error message in full blocks the grievances from being posted. Alphabet AZ, az, number 09 and special characters () only are allowed in grievance description. I would like you to take this up with your development team and fix the issues at the earliest. Thanks and Regards, Deepak Vasudevan
    7) ARNPG/E/2018/00143 Team, I observed one issue in CpgRams. On Session Timeout when it logs out it is going to an error page. Please find screenshot enclosed. Thanks and Regards, Deepak Vasudevan
    8)  ARNPG/E/2018/00145 Kindly let me know how to import the Older CpGrams (posted in the previous version of PgPortal without login) using same email address and mobile number into the new PgPortal Desk?
    9)  ARNPG/E/2018/00146 I have signed up on a defunct profile with phone number like 9194454078 (hoping that it still uses 91 94454 07856). This account is incomplete and you would not find any grievances lodged there. Is there a way to close that account? It may be unnecessarily hoarding space on CpGrams server. Dont disturb my current account with login 9445407856  (Funky Response that they are not able to address this issue now and is a limitation of the application)
    10) ARNPG/E/2018/00177  To Press Council of India _______________________ Hello Team, The newspaper Dinamani has been carrying a denigratory and defamatory post on Andal (saint sage poet) particularly in this tamil month of Margazhi when Andal sacred composition called Thiruppavai is recited with much reverence. The denigratory thoughts were aired by Vairamuthu during his rally in Rajapalayam Tamil Nadu. The newspaper has carried the content without any editing hurting the religious sentiments of billions worldwide. URL: A complaint as below has been registered with Ministry of Home Affairs against Vairamuthu who is a recipient of multiple Padma awards. (Was redirected to post the same to Ministry of Information Broadcasting)
    11) DARPG/E/2018/00390 Dear Team, I found a weird change in the new version of PgPortal with reference to Notifications. 1) Email, which can take more text has been compressed and there is no URL where we can check the status. The URL has been removed in the new notification message. 2) SMS, which takes less text has been elongated and hence older mobile phones attempt to update the same message multiple times and at times message gets split into multiple ones. I hope you take this up with the notification team and fix the same. Thanks and Regards, Deepak Vasudevan
    12) DARPG/E/2018/00616 A recent update to PgPortal CpGrams is blocking the question mark in Grievance Description textbox. A question mark is required at times when a query is raised to the service provider/department/ministry. Kindly get this character included in the Allowed List.
    13) DARPG/E/2018/00618 When you post a new grievance for the past few days, PgPortal is intermittently failing with this error message Invalid Method Description: Unable to process request for URL http://pgportal.gov.in/NewGrievance/Lodge
    14) DARPG/E/2018/00619 We need a feature in CpGrams that when a grievance is closed there should be an option to reopen it (at least for a few days) before it permanently disposed. This would ensure malpractices by operators surreptitiously closing the grievances with stupid comments.
    15) DARPG/E/2018/00620 Starting this year I observed that grievances posted to Department of Administrative Reforms and Public Grievances were coded as ARNPG unlike its predecessor DARPG but again since today I am seeing DARPG. Are there two codes or was it changed
    16) DARPG/E/2018/00710 DARPG Team, When I click Edit Profile it is going to https://pgportal.gov.in/Error page and session is getting lost and I am logged out. I am not able to edit my profile. Kindly help… Thanks and Regards, Deepak
    17) DARPG/E/2018/01340 Dear Sir/Madam, Need this as a critical requirement. Many times I have seen CpGrams operators in various ministries are just closing the grievances with flimsy reasons. In those case we need an option to REOPEN the grievance and possibly with an option to ESCALATE the situation to their superiors. Thanks and Regards, Deepak Vasudevan
    18) DARPG/E/2018/01359 N Srinivasa Rao (Financial Services — Banking Division) is repeatedly closing multiple CpGrams in his department with flimsy reasons. See dEabd/e/2017/01497
    19) DARPG/E/2018/01373 Dear Sir/Madam, Can you help me with the guidance on how to find the list of clarifications/reminders I submitted for the particular grievance Thanks and Regards, Deepak Vasudevan
    20) DARPG/E/2018/02105 Dear Team, In the recent version of CpGrams the sorting by Closing Date of the Grievance is not working. It is a show stopper issue. It sorts in an uncertain fashion. Kindly get the issue taken to the web development team and have it fixed asap. Thanks and Regards, Deepak Vasudevan
    21) DARPG/E/2018/02263 Dear Team, When the departments or ministries upload a PDF document in the new version of CpGrams we are not able to open it. It always says Failed to open PDF document. Kindly help how to read the PDF documents that are sent as a response to the petitions or grievances submitted. Thanks and Regards, Deepak Vasudevan