Grama panchayats in the State have embarked on a quality improvement initiative that is expected to tone up their administrative efficacy and strengthen the public service delivery system to the satisfaction of the citizen.
Taking a cue from an earlier drive launched by the Cheruvannoor-Nallalam grama panchayat in Kozhikode that adopted a total quality management system in its office in 2007, all the 941 grama panchayats have now taken upon them the onus to adopt a similar solution under the tutelage of the Kerala Institute of Local Administration (KILA).
The drive would earn them ISO certification and that would in turn set the benchmark for instilling professionalism and transparency in administration and enhance the quality of the service delivery mechanism.
KILA director Joy Elamon told The Hindu that 170 panchayats have already attained the goal and the rest are moving on the fast-track to get the certification within the next one year. “This endeavour is in line with the State government’s commitment for ensuring good governance through departments and local self-government institutions,” says Dr.Joy.
Total Quality Management (TQM) is an approach that entails certain systems and procedures to provide services to the satisfaction of the citizen. KILA has designed a mode for capacity building that goes much beyond mere training.
District-level teams headed by young management professionals, resource persons from KILA and the Panchayat Departments will help the panchayats to conduct citizen’s survey, prepare citizen’s charter, strengthen committee system, creating database and improving infrastructure facilities, among other goals.
Online tool
KILA would impart training on various concepts linked to TQM, including record management, e-governance, quality audit and such others and make the panchayats prepare an action for implementing TQM. KILA would continue its hand-holding support for the panchayats and would develop an online monitoring tool for reviewing the progress consistently. This is considered to be a path-breaking experiment that would further strengthen democratic decentralisation and development.
Block panchayats, municipalities have also evinced interest to adopt TQM and it would get extended to all the three-tiers in due course, says Dr.Joy.
