Federal ombudsman's office opened in Hyderabad

Wafaqi Mohtasib (Ombudsman), Salman Farooqi has said that the office of Wafaqi Mohtasib has been set up at Hyderabad to facilitate people of rural areas especially from Tharparkar and other remote areas of the province. He said this while speaking at a press conference held here on Wednesday before performing the inaugural ceremony of Wafaqi Mohtasib office at Hyderabad.
"Wafaqi Mohtasib has adopted new technology to receive complaints against any employees or officer of federal department and also resolve them as soon as possible," he said, adding currently, any one can complain online. Besides, the complainants can check the status of their lodged complaints and its status, he said, adding the progress can be put in five different steps and all those can be accessed online.
"We are trying to launch mobile service of Wafaqi Mohtasib through which complains of people can be heard in the remote areas by sending the staff there rather than hearing them at office. He said that the aim of ombudsman was to deliver free justice to people without any involving service of any advocate. Highlighting performance of Ombudsman, he said that last year, it had set the record by resolving about 1200,000 complaints and also more than 80 per cent of its decision got implemented.
However, before his tenure in the office, the average case deciding was 30,000 per year, he said, adding he disposed all complains up to 2013 and now they are focusing on complains of 2014. Aside from this, the complains of any body would be resolved within two months from next year, he said, adding it is matter of spirit to resolve huge stock of complains of previous years, he did.
"There is a need of the same spirit to resolve the issues of the people and deliver better services to them rather than rewarding with salary and other benefits," he said. He further said that Wafaqi Mohtasib Sukkur office would investigate in the incident occurred near Theri Town in Khairpur district in which more than 50 peoples lost their lives.
The bill of Reforms Act passed in 2013 has empowered Ombudsman and now he can take sou moto, confiscate vehicle any official, he said. Earlier, Ombudsman resolved many issues by taking sou moto including Passport issue, Measles in Sindh and Pension issue in Railway department, he added. Moreover, they would launch SMS service to inform the complaints about status of his complain, he said, adding he was trying to launch video-conferencing to hear the complains at remote areas of division. Later, he inaugurated Wafaqi Mohtasib Office at Hyderabad.