KILA to review ISO status of panchayats

Efforts to check veracity of claims put forth by panchayats

The Kerala Institute of Local Administration (KILA) is initiating a scrutiny of the long-term impact of ISO certification on the functioning of grama panchayats in the State.

Local Self-Government Department sources told The Hindu here that the institute would embark on a fact-finding mission.

This would be a follow-up on an intensive training it had imparted to 220 panchayats to tone up their administration and improve service delivery mechanism by adopting total quality management solutions.

As many as 31 panchayats had already got ISO certification and more were in the line to get it.

The KILA assessment will focus on finding out whether the local bodies are making meaningful endeavours to sustain the results of the certification or flaunting it merely as an honour secured for its claims on providing quality service to the public.

The institute is circulating a questionnaire to check the veracity of the claims staked by the panchayats. For, quite often, quality improvement ends up in sprucing up the front office and it may not percolate to the lower levels of administration.

Instead of making a cursory review, the institute seeks to elicit the views of all employees having a role in the administration — starting from the last-grade employees to its president, members, and officers.

The certified panchayats are bound to form a quality circle comprising employees at all levels and it should meet regularly to ensure that they adhered to the total quality management principles mandated for the certification. Implementation of e-governance will come up for review, especially the use of Tulika software for administration. Record maintenance is yet another thrust area. Shoddy record maintenance has been pointed out as the major hitch in improving the quality of services, especially issuance of certificates and replies for RTI queries.