Vanam Jwala Narasimha Rao
Published in The Hans India on 15-09-2011
National Information Services, Hyderabad
The Civil Society Intelligentsia Team, their vociferous Bharatiya Janata Party supporters led by Sushma Swaraj in the Lok Sabha and Arun Jaitley in the Rajya Sabha made no attempt to verify the considerable progress made during the Pre-2004 NDA regime in formulating Citizen Charters and putting in place effective redress mechanism across the country. They however, endorsed the “Sense of the House” resolution both outside and inside the Parliament. The three basic issues which the Parliament agreed in principle following Anna Hazare’s fast, in fact were, discussed a decade and half ago itself in the Chief Ministers’ Conference presided over by the then Prime Minister IK Gujral held on May 24, 1997 on the threshold of 50 years’ of Independence. These were prominently included in the Nine Point Action Plan of CMs Conference and it was made mandatory for all government departments-Center and State-formulating Citizens’ Charters and initiating Effective and Speedy Public Grievance Redress System. NDA vigorously pursued later.
According to the Department of Administrative Reforms of Government of India, as on January 2011, as many as 729 Citizen’s Charters were formulated by 24 State Governments and Union Territories. In AP according to General Administration Department, as many as 45 departments formulated the charters. VK Agnihotri, former Indian Administrative Service Officer and currently holding the position of Rajya Sabha Secretary General was responsible for monitoring the implementation of Charters as well as redress mechanism at that time as Secretary to Government of India in the department of Administrative Reforms.
Soon after the CMs meet of 1997, formulation of Citizens' Charters commenced in the ‘departments’ and ‘offices’, to begin with those which have a large public interface. The methodology was based on a ‘consultation process’, involving different stakeholders, specifying standards of service and time limits that the public can reasonably expect. This considerably helped in improving the quality of administration and providing a responsive interface between the citizen and the public services from the Government. The process also placed the citizen at the centre of administration instead of making him a passive recipient of services rendered indifferently with no concern for quality, timeliness or cost.
The citizen’s charter is a document prepared by the service provider in a clear and precise manner about the quality and method of delivery of services to the users (Citizens) of the service. The purpose of the citizen’s charter is to: Improve the quality of service to the public, give people more choice, tell people what kind of service to expect from the Government Departments and make sure people know what to do if something goes wrong in the process of service delivery. The Six Principles of citizen’s charters are: Published Standards, Openness and Information, Choice and Consultation, Courtesy and Helpfulness, Redress when things go wrong and Value for Money. Provision for independent scrutiny of actual implementation with the involvement of citizen groups is the basic character of Charters. It represents the moral and democratic commitment of the government to serve the public.
Eminent Citizens endorse the first 100 Charters
Photograph: Courtesy All India People's Manifesto
Implementation of Charters by the respective organizations is a major task, covering vast distances and manpower. It, therefore, needs a monumental and sustained effort at training, orientation, publicity and awareness building, as well as regular and honest evaluation, to transform the Charter from a significant piece of paper into an instrument for changing long-entrenched values and mind-set. Creating a platform of interests between the service provider and its users is the first step, balancing the strengths and constraints of the former against the reasonable expectations of the later are the next. The success of each Charter depends largely on the accuracy with which that platform of common interests is targeted, thereby endowing credibility on the service provider and creating confidence in the user.
In Andhra Pradesh during Chandrababu Naidu’s tenure as Chief Minister, remarkable work was done in this regard. As per the intentions outlined by him in his “Agenda for Action” announced in the CM’s Conference of May 1997, “SMART Governance”- Simple, Moral, Accountable, Responsive and Transparent-was a priority item. Formulation of Charters and Grievance Redress Mechanism were on top of this. Dr MCR HRD Institute of AP, the premier training center for capability building of state government employees was the platform to formulate charters to begin with.
The Board of Governors met under the Chairmanship of the then CM Chandrababu Naidu on 26th November, 1998 and decided that Dr MCR HRD Institute to be the Coordinator, to conduct departmental workshops in the Institute for select departments to familiarize with the Principals and modalities in preparing the Citizens Charter. That was purely the personal initiative of Chandrababu Naidu. The then Director General PVRK Prasad converted the intention of Babu in to Action. But, the effective awareness and impact both in the government employees and the citizens was due to the unflinching efforts of Dr N Jayaprakash Narayan of Loksatta and his committed team.
The draft charters prepared in the Institute were considered by the Government and an informal consultation process started by Minister, Secretary and Head of Department with the stake holders. A follow up workshop was organized in HRD Institute within a fortnight where in the Minister concerned along with his senior officials interacted formally with representatives of stake holders. Keeping in view the deliberations in the follow up workshop, the department firmed up the draft within the next one week. At this stage the concerned department issued a public notification through print and electronic media indicating the contents of the proposed citizen’s charter and inviting suggestions from the general public on the specific points to be covered in the charter. Simultaneously the department (coinciding with the publication for suggestions from public) informally started implementing the contents of the charter to get a feedback on any practical problems faced in the implementation. Keeping in view the suggestions from General Public and the feedback in the trial run of the charter final draft was prepared, approved and issued by the Government, within three months of the original notification calling for suggestions from public.
About 90 Citizens Charters were rolled out in Andhra Pradesh and these were at different stages of implementation by 2004 when Dr YS Rajasekhara Reddy became Chief Minister of AP in place of Chandrababu Naidu. Among them the Road Transport Authority, the Department of Employment and Training, the Hyderabad Metro Water Supply and Sewerage Board, the APTRANSO and 4 DISCOMS, the Department of Registration and Stamps, the Municipal Administration Department, the Commercial Taxes Department and the Municipal Corporation of Hyderabad implemented them in total. In addition, thirteen more departments having large public interface also developed charters but they were yet to be implemented then in 2004. Six more departments though had the charters formulated were not in standard design and do not conform to the requirements of a Citizens Charter. The Center for Good Governance (CGG) was helping departments in preparing a road map for implementation of the Charters and was building awareness among user groups.
The real issue is the need to bring about a total change in the attitude of public servants towards redress of public grievance at all levels and to pin point responsibility for action on grievance of the people. This is dependent internally on measures to improve their levels of motivation and morale through rewards for good work and punishment for deliberate negligence. The senior officers should constantly supervise the staff at the cutting edge level.
Though the UPA Government brought the much awaited Right to Information Act, it failed to take forward the charters and the grievance redress mechanism effectively. That way though there is a justification to include them afresh in the proposed Lok Pal Bill, it is desirable to begin from where it was left with regards formulation and implementation.
Here in AP with Dr Rajasekhara Reddy becoming Chief Minister the Charters were totally forgotten and probably most of the evils in Administration have roots in neglecting them. Had they been taken seriously things would have been different and there would have been either no place or less place for corrupt practices like EMAR or Obulapuram Mines.
(Jwala Narasimha Rao associated with formulation of Charters in Dr MCR HRD IAP. He was also one of the two members of the sub-group of the Core-Group constituted by Government of India in March 2002 to evaluate the progress of Charters in various States and Union Territories as part of the Status of Administrative Reforms in India).
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