I am not a big movie buff, but I should admit that some of the Bollywood flicks have been my aide while explaining certain political ideas and processes to my students, thus helping to establish the connect. One such dialogue of Shah Rukh Khan, “don’t underestimate the power of common man!”, has conveniently helped me to explain the two important Acts, The Right to Information Act and The Right of Citizens to Time Bound Service Delivery of Public Service Act which have armed the common man with the right to seek information, and to get public services which he/she is due for in a time bound manner.
I will focus on The Right of Citizens to Time Bound Service Delivery of Public Service Act (hence forth referred to as Act) which has created a mechanism to ensure timely delivery of specific services to the people in a stipulated time. A common man requires various services such as a new water or electricity connection, issuance of birth, death or income certificate, issuance of ration card, driving licence, No Objection Certificate for starting a small business etc. These services should be accessible to him within a set timeline.
The Act emphasizes that all the government departments, public undertakings, government aided institutions, local bodies, and for that matter even Non-Government Organisations which receive grants from the Government have to deliver their services to the people within a given time frame. Every public authority has to publish Citizen’s Charter of services to be provided by it and their timelines for delivery. These services have to be identified by each department and have to verified and updated at regular intervals. The Act also makes a provision for redressal of grievances where an appeal can be made by the applicant for seeking relief for denial or failure of service delivery and the errant public servant or dealing official can be penalised for delay or failure to render the services.
Thus, the Act with three main features – firstly, time-bound delivery of services, secondly, redressal of grievances, and thirdly, penalty for non-compliance for the concerned officer, has the potential of drastically changing the age old image of bureaucracy as ‘Babu-Raj’ where the Sarkari Babu is the Kingpin. Common man has been visiting his office several times, has to make repeated requests and petitions and has been tired running around in circles, and has even fallen at the feet of the ‘mai bap’(exaggeration with purpose) to get the basic public services. There have been delays and red-tape, creating ample scope for bribery and corruption.
Studies conducted across the country have shown that people don’t have pleasant experience with the bureaucracy, and public services are miserably failing. This scenario has given impetus for legislation of Time Bound Service Delivery Act in different states in India. The Act articulates citizens’ entitlements, builds internal checks and balances, have grievance mechanism in place and checks delivery failure. The Act guarantees transparency, accountability and efficient and effective service delivery.
It was way back in 1991 in United Kingdom (UK), the then Prime Minister, John Major, realised the importance of continuously improving the quality of public services for the people of the country. He initiated the concept of Citizen’s Charter for service delivery by various departments. UK was soon followed by other countries like Australia, Belgium, France and India. In India, in 1997, at a Chief Ministerial meeting, the Central Government and the State Governments agreed to formulate Citizen’s Charter. Madhya Pradesh was the first State to enact Public Service Guarantee Act or Madhya Pradesh Lok Sewaon Ke Pradan Ki Guarantee Adhiniyamin 2010. In Karnataka there is SAKALA Act which guarantees the citizens to deliver certain services in stipulated time. Today 16 states in India have passed this Act. In Goa, the Act was passed on May 2, 2013. There are around 498 services recognised as time-bound. There is also a provision for an appeal to Appellate Authority who is empowered to reject appeals or order the designated officer to provide the services. The major departments like Revenue, Health, Transport, Human Resource, as well as the local bodies that is the Panchayats and Municipalities are brought under the purview of this Act.
It is too early to analyse the implementation of this Act in the state. However interviews with few of the applicants do make one believe that positive changes are taking place in our public system. One applicant was pleasantly surprised to get Caste Certificate within three days from the Collector’s Office, Mapusa. He had submitted his application in his Panchayat, and the Talathi had processed it online. The Talathi handed over the hard copy to the applicant on the fourth day. Another respondent narrated how he got Income Certificate from the Panchayat within forty eight hours. Recently the Chief Minister, Manohar Parrikar, announced his Government’s ambitious plan of introducing electronic delivery of most of these services, and the people could be even given lockers where they could save some of these services in the form of soft copy for e.g. Birth Certificate.
Now, what is required is mass awareness and facilitation centres for the public. But more importantly there has to be training imparted to the public officials about attitude and behaviour change, as they normally are unconcerned about people and as rightly put ‘busy working first for the higher-ups, then for themselves and lastly, if time permits, for the people at large’. With strict and honest implementation of Time Bound Service Delivery Act, first will be the people, the ‘common man’, and that really calls for us to say, ‘Don’t underestimate the power of Common Man’.
(The author is Associate Professor in Political Science, Govt. College, Khandola, Marcela, Goa).
