The Kerala government will introduce legislation to provide legal guarantees for senior citizens during the current assembly session and launch a three-month drive to clear 2.76 lakh pending e-files across departments, Chief Minister V D Satheesan said at a post-cabinet briefing on Friday.
The file-clearance exercise, named Janasparsham, will run from October 15 to December 31. It will be conducted through coordination among government departments, with the stated aim of resolving files that remain pending in the state administration.
“Every file has a life problem associated with it,” Satheesan said while announcing the initiative. The government has not provided a department-wise breakdown of the 2.76 lakh files in the information available.
The proposed senior-citizens’ rights legislation will create a department dedicated to their welfare, according to the chief minister. The government plans to seek passage of the bill during the ongoing session of the state legislative assembly. Satheesan described it as the first such initiative in the country.
The proposed framework will include collecting data on senior citizens and taking steps to ensure that they are not left alone. The government also plans to establish community groups, modelled on Kudumbashree, to provide care and support to older people.
The announcement links legal protection for senior citizens with a broader administrative challenge: ensuring that government systems respond to residents’ needs in time. The Janasparsham exercise is intended to address the backlog through coordinated action by departments rather than through a single department-level process.
The government also released progress figures for its 100-day action programme. It said 568 of 588 projects had been completed, representing 96.6% of the target. Of the programme’s 1,737 project components, 1,681 had been completed, while 20 projects involving the remaining 57 components were still in progress.
According to the government-released figures, all pending projects had achieved more than 90% progress, while 42 departments had completed all their targeted projects. The electronics and information technology department reported 99% progress, completing 39 of 42 projects and 112 of 117 components.
The public works department reported 99% progress after completing 29 of 30 projects. The local self-government department recorded 98% progress, with 19 of 20 projects and 66 of 69 components completed. The AYUSH department reported 96% progress after completing 10 of 11 projects and 32 of 37 components.
The water resources department also reported 96% progress, completing 21 of 23 projects and 54 of 57 components. The government’s next stated milestones are the introduction of the senior-citizens’ rights bill during the current assembly session and the launch of Janasparsham on October 15.
