Union Minister of State for Personnel, Public Grievances and Pensions V. Narayanasamy on Wednesday said the Union government seeks to bring uniformity in government service delivery structure through a Central legislation in its pursuit to ensure corruption-free governance.
He said the government was hopeful of the passage of the Right of Citizens for Time Bound Delivery of Goods and Services and Redressal of their Grievances Bill, 2011, in the forthcoming session of Parliament.
Mr. Narayanasamy was speaking at the inauguration of the two-day regional conference on ‘Learning from successes’, organised jointly by his Ministry and the Karnataka government, in which representatives from southern, western and central Indian States are sharing the best practices in governance.
‘A step forward’ The Minister said the Bill was a step forward by the Centre in its rights-based approach after enacting the Right to Information Act, getting the Lokpal and the Lokayukta Bills passed, and introducing the Whistleblowers Protection Bill and the Public Procurement Bill. The government was committed to enacting the pending legislation at the earliest, Mr. Narayanasamy said.
Complimenting the State for the Karnataka Sakala Services Act, 2011, which covers delivery of 477 services, Mr. Narayanasamy said the Bill was introduced to bring in uniformity in service delivery structure across the country. While many States had their own service delivery modules, there was no uniformity.
He said the salient features of the Bill include coverage of all public authorities — right from gram panchayats to Ministries — and provision for an information and facilitation centre as a single window for servicing citizens in each public authority.
Penalty Besides bringing almost all government services under time bound delivery purview, the Bill also seeks to impose penalty of Rs. 250 a day for failing to provide information within the stipulated time and compensate the applicant, the Minister said. The penalty in Karnataka is Rs. 20 a day at present.
Inaugurating the conference, Chief Minister Siddaramaiah said Sakala had ensured 447 services were delivered in time with 98 per cent success. About 4 crore applications had been delivered before time to applicants in one-and-a-half years. The government would add more services under Sakala besides focusing more on government process re-engineering, thereby making service delivery citizen friendly, he said.
