The State-wide raid on local bodies conducted by the Vigilance last week has revealed that the Right to Service Act implemented by the State government with much fanfare is yet to become, well, a right.
The Act, which came in to force in November last year was aimed at making government servants accountable to the public by redressing citizen’s grievances in a time-bound manner. However, the outcome of the raid proves that they are yet to adopt the legislation in its true spirit. In fact, some officials were completely ignorant about the existence of such an Act.
The raid named Operation Service Rights revealed that more than 8,000 applications, which were supposed to be addressed within a week, were found to be pending by more than six months in local bodies across the State.
R. Sreelekha, ADGP, Vigilance, who led the raid, said the implementation of Right to Service Act left much to be desired.
Minister for Municipalities and Corporations Manjalamkuzhi Ali told The Hindu that action would be taken against officials found guilty in the raid. He, however, rejected the notion the government hurried with the Right to Service Act without doing proper homework. “It’s just a matter of the officials taking time to get familiar with the Act and study and understand its provisions,” he said.
D. Babu Paul, former Additional Chief Secretary, also felt that it would take time before the Act served its purpose. “The basic problem is inadequate awareness about the Act both among the government servants as well as the public. Just like the Right to Information (RTI) Act is being used by a minority, the common man is either unaware of it or not inclined to invoke it,” he said.
He said while the minority utilising the RTI Act gave the information to the media thus gathering publicity, there was not much scope for that in the case of Right to Service Act. “Of course you can gather information about the delay in getting the service using the RTI and then it will become news,” he said.
D.B. Binu, advocate and RTI activist, said while the State government implemented it out of compulsion after promising it in the election manifesto, it lacked political will in implementing it. Kottathala Mohanan, State president, NGO Association, however, shot down this argument stating that there was all round support for the Act among government servants. “The lack of necessary infrastructure is an issue. But more importantly it will take to come on track just as in the case of RTI Act. The government had given an initial grace period before strictly enforcing it. Punitive measures under the Act can be expected in the next phase,” he said.
