Lieutenant-Governor Anil Baijal on Thursday trained his guns on the Delhi government, which he said was trying to convey a “wrong impression” over his stance on the issue of doorstep delivery of government services. The L-G has now termed media reports on his take on the issue “misinformation spread intentionally or unintentionally”.
For days, the L-G and the Delhi government have accused the other of attempting to portray the scheme through the “wrong perspective”. The Delhi government also asked who “should have the final say” in a democracy — the elected government or the L-G.
The AAP government had also alleged that Mr. Baijal's suggested modifications to the scheme were based on a “failed” idea and that the ensuing tussle over it raised “an important Constitutional issue.”
“A misplaced parallel is being drawn between the current proposal and e-commerce. There is no technology so far to download pizza and many other e-commerce products, whereas most of the proposed services in the government proposal can be and are already being delivered online,” Mr. Baijal said in reference to Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia's statement to this effect at a press conference on Wednesday.
Delivery of pizza and most of other e-commerce products, Mr. Baijal further said, can also not be compared with the documents proposed to be delivered through the ‘mobile sahayaks’ as the latter would involve “sensitive personal information”.
The government, in its rebuttal, said “The example of pizza delivery, gas cylinders and insurance was given to counter some of the objections raised by the L-G. If the delivery of pizza doesn’t cause any traffic congestion and pollution, then how come delivery of services at doorstep will cause traffic congestion and pollution?”.
Digitisation of services
The L-G says, the government clarified, that end-to-end digitisation should be done. Several services are already digitised end-to-end, but a large number of people are unable to use it. “Internet is not an easy medium for everyone... even for online services, people need to go to government offices to submit documents. Many people have to make multiple visits and face long queues. The new scheme provides services to your doorstep,” it said.
The Raj Niwas said nowhere did the L-G mention that “mere digitisation was enough.” The advice of the L-G, according to Raj Niwas, was “to have ‘end-to-end’ digitisation i.e. the services should be applied online and also received online. “This would eliminate human interface and would be effective against corruption,” it said.
