The Aam Aadmi Party government on Thursday retabled a Bill in the Delhi Assembly that would increase accountability of public authorities towards delivering services in a timely manner, after making minor changes to a 2015 version passed by the House.
The Delhi (Right of Citizen to Time Bound Delivery of Services) Amendment Bill, 2017 was introduced by Information and Technology Minister Kailash Gahlot and is expected to be discussed and passed on Friday, the last day of the four-day session.
Objections by Centre
The Bill was among those passed by the Assembly in 2015 that the Centre has objected to due to the definition of government, which the AAP government had changed to refer to itself instead of the Lieutenant-Governor.
In order to get final approval for the Bill, the AAP government decided to go back to the old definition and re-table the Bill.
As per the Bill, all Delhi government departments or public authorities would have to come up with a citizen’s charter within 30 days of the notification of the law.
The charters would have to be updated every year, said officials.
E-governance
The departments, local body or public authorities would have to provide services to citizens through e-governance.
Penalties for government servants who fail to deliver services in the time prescribed would be decided by the government.
Currently, there is a cap of ₹200 per application as compensatory cost to a citizen.
