Aaple Sarkar Grievance — File Online, Track and Appeal

The token number is the whole file

A token number is generated as soon as a grievance is submitted, and everything afterwards runs on it: checking status, reopening the case, and filing either appeal. There is no alternative identifier. A grievance whose token you cannot produce is, for practical purposes, a grievance you cannot pursue.

This is a harsher design than it looks, because the natural response to a lost token is to file again — and refiling creates a new token dated today. You lose the accumulated delay, which is the most valuable thing an old grievance has, and you end up with two records that can each be disposed of by reference to the other.

So treat the token as you would a receipt for money. Write it down somewhere that is not the browser tab you filed in: on paper, in a note, in an email to yourself with the date. Add one line saying what the grievance was about, because six weeks later a bare number tells you nothing.

What 21 working days actually means

The competent authority is reported to address a grievance within 21 working days of submission. The phrase to notice is "working days". Twenty-one working days is about a calendar month once weekends are excluded, and rather more across a festival period — so a grievance filed in early September is not overdue in the last week of September, however slow it feels.

Counting properly matters because the period is what makes your appeal reasonable rather than premature. An appeal filed while the competent authority still has time is easy to reject on that basis alone. An appeal filed the week after the period has demonstrably expired, quoting the token date and the expiry, starts from a much stronger position.

Diarise two dates when you file: the expiry of the 21 working days, and a week after it. On the first, check the portal. On the second, if nothing has happened or the disposal does not address what you asked, reopen and appeal.

How to write a first and second appeal that works

Maharashtra gives you two appeal officers, which is more than most state grievance systems offer, and the great majority of people never use either. Of those who do, most write the wrong document: they retell the original grievance at length, which gives the appeal officer nothing to disagree with the competent authority about and invites the same outcome.

An appeal is an argument about a disposal. Name the disposal, date it, and identify the specific thing it did not deal with. If the disposal says the matter was examined and the applicant may approach the office, the point is that it records no decision. If it says work was completed on a date, the point is a dated photograph showing otherwise. If it says you are ineligible, the point is the document establishing eligibility.

The second appeal has a wider subject than the first. There, you are entitled to argue not only that the original disposal was wrong but that the first appeal failed to engage with the point you raised — and if that is what happened, say it plainly and quote your own words from the first appeal. That is an argument about the handling of the grievance, which is exactly what a second appellate stage exists for.

1. 1Copy the disposal wording out of the portal before writing anything.
2. 2Open the appeal with the token number, the date of the grievance and the date of the disposal.
3. 3State in one sentence what you originally asked for — the same defined outcome, unchanged.
4. 4State in one paragraph what the disposal failed to consider or got wrong, with a date attached to your evidence.
5. 5Attach the same underlying documents again; do not assume the file travels complete.
6. 6Ask for the identical relief you asked for at first instance, so the request stays consistent across all three stages.
7. 7At second appeal, add one sentence on what the first appeal did not deal with, quoting your own earlier words.

The two Aaple Sarkars, and which one you need

Aaple Sarkar is best known in Maharashtra as the service-delivery portal — where you apply for a domicile certificate, an income certificate, a caste certificate and a long list of other services. That is not the grievance portal, and the confusion sends a great many people to the wrong place.

The grievance redressal portal sits at grievances.maharashtra.gov.in and is listed by the National e-Governance Division as run by the Directorate of Information Technology, Government of Maharashtra. It is where you go when something has gone wrong: an application not decided, a service not delivered, a benefit not released, an office not acting.

The practical rule is simple. Applying for something is the services portal. Complaining that an application has not been dealt with is the grievance portal — and when you complain, quote the application number from the services side, because that is the identifier the department will search on.

• Applying for a certificate or service — the Aaple Sarkar services portal.
• An application not decided within its period — the grievance portal, quoting the application number.
• A benefit sanctioned but not released — the grievance portal, quoting the sanction number.
• A portal that will not accept your registration or upload — the technical helpline, 1800 120 8040.
• A decision you say is wrong — the departmental appeal route, or the sector regulator, not a grievance.

After both appeals

Once the First and Second Appeal Officers have both dealt with the matter and the relief is still outstanding, the portal has done what it can. Two routes remain, and they do different jobs.

The Government of India publishes Maharashtra’s nodal public grievance officer as a Deputy Secretary in the General Administration Department at Mantralaya, Mumbai. Write there about the handling — the token number, the dates of the grievance and both appeal outcomes, and what remains undone. Keep it to a page and address the designation rather than the individual, since officers at this level are transferred regularly.

File the same facts on CPGRAMS at pgportal.gov.in in parallel. It is forwarded back to Maharashtra rather than decided centrally, but it brings its own 21-day norm, an interim-reply requirement and a 30-day right of appeal, and it puts the matter on a record outside the system that has just declined it twice.

And keep the limit in view: none of these can award money. Where the grievance concerns a service you paid for and what you want is compensation, the District Consumer Commission is the forum with that power — no filing fee where the consideration paid is up to ₹5 lakh, and two years from the cause of action.

Worked examples