The toughest proposition for any journalistic outlet/platform whether a newspaper, periodical, website or a news television channel is when citizens get more comfortable with social media platforms more than the traditional ones.
So when citizen Viraj Bakre is more comfortable demanding a Sentinel Scheme on the lines of traffic police sentinel scheme on a social platform, it’s a thumbs down to the journalism fraternity for missing out on a brilliant idea. Bakre posts, “Authorities give manpower shortage as the excuse to implement, monitor and curb the violators which are not true. Sentinel scheme will be a boon. The complaint will get automatically registered and acknowledged on the APP. They will have to take action which can be ascertained. The complainant will get the reward. And the most important point, the complainant will get anonymity. Citizens are reluctant to complain because the complainant is exposed by the department and targeted by violators”. Where those pompous seeming Citizens Charter hangs outside State Government offices and Departments promising us everything but delivering nothing, maybe a Sentinel App could work.
Let us face it. Departments like Forest, Environment, Mining, Town & Country Planning, Public works, Panchayat and even Health have become enablers of systemic and systematic corruption. Calls to flying squads go either unanswered or unresolved and complain against officials lie unpunished for ages in Anti-Corruption Bureau and Vigilance Departments. Goa Government’s in-house sentinels are no less than the proverbial caged parrots. Officials complain how department seniors and politicians interfere and scuttle numerous probes rendering exercises in rooting out corruption – useless. Maybe an app’s anonymity could even give upright and proactive officials the chance to clean up the system and ensure that it regains the faith and confidence of the people. Will the Government be able to stand up to scrutiny thereafter?
There is a sense of cynicism and frustration that has seeped into the Goan society at large when transparency and effectiveness in governance are mentioned. The sorry state of affairs may have developed over the years but in these times when the State Government works in a state of limbo, who is policing the policy deliverers? There is a perennial clamour for transparency and efficiency in Goa government’s systems and processes. Why things go wrong is simply because nobody wants to break free from their comfort zones. Former Revenue Minister Francis D’souza had proposed an interesting cadre of government officials with the sole responsibility of ensuring that Government runs during Assembly Sessions and Code of Conduct. For many of us, the experience of getting government permission when Assembly is in session or a Code of Conduct in place for Assembly or Parliamentary Elections; can be nothing but horrific. So D’Souza’s idea seemed pretty out-of-the-box and futuristic. However, it left one thinking – was there actually more than enough work for government departments and existing government officials such that they could not deliver their normal job responsibilities?
Is it that difficult for a Government Official or a Government Department to deliver what they have been chosen for in the first place? And if they fail to deliver, isn’t integrity a necessitate considering each one of them is bound by the Constitution of India? And if their integrity fails, isn’t the citizen entitled to a traffic sentinel style scheme for rectifying aberrations in the system? Maybe it’s time to demand a system, a mechanism that guarantees both – citizens anonymity and justice if they have a grievance and officials who deliver justice, immunity and anonymity to ensure that the system is secure and pure. Even better would be an experiment with artificial intelligence where a citizen’s complaint could be addressed by an impassive and self-learning machine that addresses citizen’s complaints on merits and not emotional outbursts and hidden motives. For a small place like Goa where one literally sleeps with or next to the enemy, an app and artificial intelligence based system could be the perfect foil to corrupt officials.
In the words of Swiss theologian Johann Kaspar Lavater, “Conscience is the sentinel of virtue”. But for a system like Goa Government where conscience is the first thing that gets compromised, virtue is the first casualty. No wonder then that we are so unsure, so scared of our own officials that governance goes on autopilot and our faith remains shaky. Is it then so simple as to restore our faith in the Government using a dispassionate Sentinel System?
