Thaindian News

By Mayank Aggarwal
New Delhi, Jan 24 (IANS) Delhi government ‘babus’ can no longer afford to procrastinate on citizens’ problems. From April 1, authorities will levy a fine of Rs.10 per day on erring officials who do not provide services in a time-bound manner, becoming the first city in the country to do so. The radical measure has the backing of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh.

The decision is part of the Prime Minister Office’s (PMO) plan relating to service level agreements (SLAs) that make it obligatory on the part of authorities to help provide services in a time-bound manner to citizens, failing which penalties will be imposed on them.

“The scheme is starting in Delhi from April 1 and with that Delhi will become the first city to do so. It will make the officials accountable to people in every possible sense,” a top official of the Delhi government’s information technology (IT) department told IANS.

“It will initially cover seven departments, including food and civil supplies, sales tax and transport. The office of the divisional commissioner of Delhi administration will also come under this scheme,” the official said, speaking on condition of anonymity.

“The issuance of birth and death certificates by local bodies like the Municipal Corporation of Delhi (MCD) and the New Delhi Municipal Council (NDMC) will also come under this plan,” the official added.

“The idea is not to penalise government officials,” he said. “The point is that services are time-bound. If a citizen has applied for a ration card and is not issued one in the given time, the official will be fined or valid reasons will have to be given why a card cannot be issued in the particular time period.”

The scheme will improve service delivery and pinpoint responsibility on erring officials.

However, the time duration to provide these services will be set by the departments themselves.

“The departments will set their own time limits. After the scheme starts, if any official violates the time limit set by his department, he will be fined,” the official said.

Asked how many services of these seven departments would come under the scheme, he replied: “More than 1,000. It will be a gigantic task and will require huge effort to run it properly.

“A monitoring system will also be set up so that the results can be analysed and if any problem arises, it can be streamlined.”

“Only after monitoring the scheme for some months will we think about bringing more departments under its net,” he said.

A centralised web system is being developed to monitor the scheme. “A software has been developed and for that trials are on,” he added.

(Mayank Aggarwal can be contacted at mayank.a@ians.in)