This is one of the largest public service-providing departments and as such, Revenue department carries a major responsibility to ensure easing out difficulties faced by a common man. The Department has thus taken early initiative to implement the long-awaited Time Bound Delivery Services Act in the coming week. Its soft launch, first in the South Goa Collectorate followed by Deputy Collector Office and Sub-registrar Office in Mapusa has gained enormous response.
“The trial period is going on at the taluka level offices and simultaneously covering respective Collectorates step-by-step,” Revenue Minister Rohan Khaunte said in a conversation with Herald giving emphasis to no-nonsense policy and zero tolerance to corruption.
With a tentative period from May 15 to 20 set to officially launch the Act across all the wings under the Revenue Department, the minister believes it will bring strict discipline and punctuality among the government employees/officials/officers. The Act also specifies those caught violating the rules will be held accountable and subjected to stern action as laid down in the Act.
Besides easing out problems of the common man in connection with availing related services and ensuring better networking, Khaunte has also proposed rebranding of all the offices work of which has begun in full-swing. “All the offices are undergoing rebranding to provide a much better service to the people of Goa. We have prioritized crucial like e-district and clearing backlog of mutation cases and expediting the process on fresh applications, besides others,” he disclosed. With the functioning going online, Khaunte said, a person need not waste his/her time going to the concerned offices in near future.
Under the e-district service, one can apply and receive certificates such as Residence, Income, Divergence, Caste, Sound, Matriz and Domicile. Similarly, a single window for partition and conversion is in pipeline. Sources said that out of nearly 9,000 mutation cases pending with both the Collectorates, nearly 2,000 have been cleared while the remaining backlog will reach its logical conclusion by September. “There is a time frame set for every service ranging from three days to three months. If any work goes beyond the deadline, the concerned official is liable for penalty,” a senior bureaucrat told Herald.
Public Grievance Box is also being installed at all taluka level offices and letters received would be opened at the respective Collectors’ offices every fortnight to take appropriate steps based on the complaints, views, etc. Every office will also have the Big Brother – CCTV cameras fitted to monitor the functioning. “This will reduce serious allegations of corruption and lethargy in completing the work,” said the minister, who has been instrumental in exposing the Beach Cleaning scam during the previous reign of the BJP-led government.
As a part of this exercise, a poster reading ‘Bribery is an offence’ will be pinned at every taluka offices and Collectorates in both the districts. In another move, uniform timing of 11am to 1pm are fixed for all taluka, mamlatdar and deputy collectors to jointly listen to the grievances and redress them latest by the next sitting. So also a new email id [email protected] is already in public domain receiving different types of mails. These are directly accessed by the minister himself, revenue secretary and collectors. “The district collectors are responsible to reply to the queries of the sender with a copy to the minister. Different types of complaints have come to the fore which are being addressed,” an official, who is a part of the IT team, told Herald.
The nature of complaints as well as the identity of the sender remains confidential owing to various reasons.
With all the services currently on trial basis, the minister said, they are recording the reviews from concerned departments for any modifications before its official launch.
Khaunte has also proposed introducing a series of technology-based services such as IVRS based citizen Response System integrated with SMS gateway to give one stop solution for checking status of applications and registering grievances. The calls will be attended by trained personnel who will collect the information from the respective offices and revert with the details. If grievance redressal is not up to the satisfaction of the citizen, the matter will be escalated to the next level and directions given accordingly.
Yet another initiative of the department – Gramin Mitra (friend of a villager) which is a part of the Time Bound Delivery Service has been launched on a pilot basis in the village of Socorro.
“As part of our mission to improve the efficiency of governance and take the delivery of services to the doorsteps of the common man, through the Department of Revenue, we are in the process of introducing an efficient IT initiative (Gramin Mitra),” he said.
Under the scheme, the trained staff will move to the villages with a tablet, printer, scanner and projector to help people upload applications on the e-district portal. The receipts will be generated online and the kits will be used for creating awareness on various government schemes. “The scheme will be spread to all the other identified villages in the next six months,” the minister assured. The audio-video media facilities to facilitate information dissemination are also be a part of the initiative.
Here’s another unique system introduced in any government departments – the Happy Quotient Recording. A citizen’s response to a service he/she availed will be submitted digitally in the form of a ‘smiley.’ The recording of smiley will also include contact numbers of the persons. “If the response is unsatisfactory or the applicant has a complaint, we will revert to him/her seeking details. This will help us improve our system,” Khaunte said.
