Events &Issues
New Delhi, 1 September 2015
Right to Services
MARK OF GOOD
GOVERNANCE
By Dr S Saraswathi
(Former Director,
ICSSR, New Delhi)
An ambitious people-oriented legislation, Right to Services
Act, is reported to be under the active consideration of the Government of
India. Falling under the Ministry of Personnel and Public Grievances it is
concerned with the execution of policies and programmes of all ministries and
departments and covers procedures, methods, strategies and impact.
Rights-based citizen entitlements are an advanced concept of
democracy. It is demanded and conceded in many democratic countries all over
the world. A product of neo-liberalism, it has engulfed thinking and action
towards freedom and equality. It has become a prerequisite for development
ethics. India’s
move towards this ideal follows the prevailing global trend in democratic
practices and patterns.
The proposed legislation, concerned with a “right”, has to
guarantee not only freedom to obtain the right, but also equality to enjoy and
exercise the right without any discrimination. As such, it has to pay special
attention and take care of the weak, the depressed and marginalized groups, the
uninformed, and the disabled who may lag behind in the race.
On the other side, it has to evolve methods to tackle the
growing VIP culture, and cope up with the enormous privileges given to and
appropriated by the rich and the powerful. For, every privilege granted to one person cuts
into the right of another person, and should therefore be granted with utmost
caution.
The foundation of democratic government is rooted in the
concept that all public power rises from the people. Everyone theoretically
enjoys the same rights and opportunity. It is the right as well as the duty of
the citizens to watch and scrutinize how the public authorities exercise their
power and discharge their functions.
In rights-based governance, service is a right and guarantee
of service delivery. It is offered in a variety of forms in many countries.
Common among these are proclamation of a Citizens’ Charter, certification of
processes adopted for ensuring compliance with agreed standards of service
delivery, legislations like the Right to Information Act, and Consumer
Protection Act, introduction and institutionalization of regulatory
authorities, adoption of results-based management, introduction of outcome
budgets, and promotion of public-private
partnerships in public service delivery.
During the 1990s, a number of countries within and outside
the Commonwealth adopted citizens’ charters following the initiative taken in
the UK.
They were all designed to empower the citizens in relation to public service
delivery. The principles were to maintain quality and prescribed standards and
provide procedures to deal with lapses, and maintain accountability and
transparency. Later, these were elaborated to cover accessibility, choice,
involvement, fairness, consultation, etc., which put citizens at the centre of the
delivery system.
Some countries have also moved beyond proclamation of
charters. In the UK,
a process labeled “Public Services: Putting People First” has been initiated. Since
India
is far behind and Indian citizens are yet to become aware of their rights, it
is necessary to know what is happening in the rest of the world.
Right to Services Act, now under consideration, is intended
to guarantee time-bound delivery of various public services rendered by the Government
to the citizens. It provides a mechanism to check and prevent deficiency in
services including punishing the errant public servant. The right necessarily
includes right to transparency and accountability in delivering the services
and also right to information and accessibility to the services.
The legislation can thereby bring the public authorities
closer to the people. It is an indispensable step towards good governance. In
1997, in a conference of Chief Ministers, an “Action Plan for Effective and
Responsive Government” at the Centre and the States was adopted. Within a
decade, over 100 citizens’ charters were issued by various agencies of Central
and State governments. These were voluntary declarations.
Madhya Pradesh government is the first to enact the Right to
Services Act in 2010 followed by Bihar in
2011. Several other States enacted similar laws including, Gujarat, Haryana,
Himachal Pradesh, Jharkhand, Kerala, Punjab,
Rajasthan, Uttarakhand, and Uttar Pradesh. However, most of these have remained
ineffective.
In most of these States, the law is applied for issuing
essential documents like birth, marriage, and domicile certificates,
electricity connection, voter identity card, ration card, etc., which are
essential and due to citizens as a
matter of right.
Karnataka’s Guarantee of Services to Citizens Act 2011,
popularly called the Sakala Services Act has become a model worth examining. It
is considered an “institutional attempt to functionalize day-to-day
people-centric governance”. It applies to 151 services spread in 11 departments
all of which have crucial importance to people. The term “sakala”, which
denotes the service delivery programme in Karnataka, means “in time” or “good
time”.
Right to Services is primarily concerned with timely service
without delay. If service organizations ensure that all activities are every
time from the first time onwards carried out in the right manner, it will cut
waste of time and resources. Mistakes – wanton or by oversight – very common in
public offices, is a disservice to the client and liable to punishment.
The Citizens’ Charter Bill, named as The Right of Citizens
for Time Bound Delivery of Goods and Services and Redressal of their Grievances
Bill was tabled in Parliament in 2011. Under this, it was mandatory for every
public authority to publish a citizens’ charter within six months of the
commencement of the Act. It laid down the obligations of every public authority
towards citizens in time-bound delivery of services, in public grievance
redress, and in case of non-compliance with the charter. Every ministry and
department was obliged to take action on every complaint within 30 days. The bill
provided for appeals and designated appellate authorities at various levels for
careful disposal of public grievances.
The bill came after Anna Hazare’s insistence on including it
in the Jan Lok Pal Bill. It lapsed with the dissolution of the 15th
Lok Sabha.
Awareness level of common people in India about
their own rights being very low, and transactions with the bureaucracy being
tough and time consuming, rights and charters immediately benefit few people.
Authorities respond more quickly to direct action of people than to assertion
of rights through petitions, law courts and litigations.
Hence, our immediate task is dissemination of information to
reach all sections of the population throughout the country. Despite the
tremendous growth of communication media, people’s ignorance of public policy
and programmes is enormous.
A major block to the right of service is rampant corruption
eating into administration at all levels. It points to the importance of Lok
Pal without which rights and charters will remain on paper.
A common political argument advanced against administrative
reforms is about encroachment into the sphere of the States. When
citizen-friendly legislations are proposed under concurrent powers, issues like
federalism seem silly. The political class has to come out of its narrow party shells
and think of the good of the nation and people as a whole and extend
legislative cooperation. There can be no two opinions on the importance of the
right to service which is indeed a mark of good governance. --- INFA
(Copyright,
India News and Feature Alliance)
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