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| Home> Citizen Charter> GIST of Workshop on Citizen Charter held on 13 Feb 03 > Key Note Address | |||||||
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GIST of Workshop on Citizen Charter held on 13 Feb 03 |
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Key Note Address |
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| Key note address delivered by Sh Champak Chatterji, Addl. Secretary, Deptt of AR & PG, Government of India at Workshop on Citizen’s Charter Organized by the Government of NCT of Delhi on 13-02-2003 1. It gives me immense pleasure to be with you today in this Workshop on Citizen’s Charter. The Government of NCT of Delhi has been taking a number of initiatives, which are citizen-centric, and this Workshop will further sustain the momentum. 2. Citizen’s Charter is a tool to bring in good governance in administration. It is being increasingly recognized that good governance is not a peripheral activity but lies at the core of economic development. It is not that it is something wholly new. Good governance has a hoary ancestry. Monarchs like Asoka, Akbar, Haroun al Rashid to name only a few, followed its precepts and the great ethical discourses like Epictetus’s Art of Living and Thiruvalluvar’s Kural embody its underlying principles. Current day thinking – be it the World Bank Occasional Paper or our 10th Plan document which brings on board good governance per se for the first time – all acknowledge the simple but profound logic that as the economy expands to become more and more global, democracy needs to be deepened more and more at the local level. 3. The society of today is more empowered and enlightened due to increased literacy rate and rapid developments in the fields of economy and information technology. The citizens today not only want a greater say in the public services that should be available to them but also the manner in which these should be made available to them. This has made a major paradigm shift in governance and implies that old-fashioned notions of power, authority and control have to be shed and a new mindset developed. A mindset that allows for consultation with the citizen, respecting the value for their time and money and moreover tailoring the public’s service delivery system to meet their requirement. We have to provide a more participative and interactive governance. Administrators have a crucial role in ensuring that norms and styles of participative and citizen centric governance are evolved and effectively implemented. 4. The citizen today is impatient with the old system of Governance, which is not coming upto their expectations. The general feeling is that the Government adopts the style and procedures that serve government functionaries rather than serving and helping the citizen. To bring a change in system, a change in mind set and a fresh approach in administration is required. 5. The main function of Department of Administrative Reforms and Public Grievances in Government of India is to work towards providing effective and responsive governance in the changing scenario. For this purpose, the Department has been taking many initiatives. Major amongst them are putting into place an effective public grievance redress system, review of administrative laws, regulations and procedures, and implementation of citizen’s charter in Government as a tool for providing accountable and citizen friendly governance. The concept of Citizen’s Charter was introduced in Government of India in 1996 and was adopted for introduction in the Central Government as well as States/Union Territories in the Chief Ministers’ Conference held in May 1997 as a part of action plan for providing effective and responsive administration. The Department of Administrative Reforms & Public Grievances was given the responsibility to coordinate the efforts in this direction during the Chief Ministers’ Conference. 6. The concept of Citizen’s Charter as a tool for improving the customer satisfaction through better participation of the citizen in governance was introduced in UK in 1992 and has been successfully implemented in many other countries like Canada, Malaysia, Australia, etc. The principles governing the concept of Charter are standards of services, value for money, information and openness, choice and consultation, courtesy and helpfulness, and putting things right are nothing new to us. The charter on its own provides no new legal rights. It, however, lays emphasis on consultation with all stakeholders so that commitments are fulfilled to the extent possible. 7. Due to the persistent effort in this direction by Department of AR & PG , today 75 Citizen Charters have been brought out by various Central Government Ministries/Departments/Organizations. 498 Departments and Organizations of 23 State Governments and Union Territory Administrations have also brought out their Citizen’s Charter. However, we have to still go a long way to achieve the objective of this initiative, i.e. providing a hassle free quality public service to the citizen at a reasonable cost. 8. The primary purpose of a Citizen’s Charter is to improve the quality of service being offered to the citizen and to ensure better citizen satisfaction. It can be achieved only with the process of consultation with all the stakeholders, adequate training to the personnel, particularly at cutting edge level and attitudinal changes through effective teamwork. Unless the mind set is changed, the citizen cannot get the primacy and unless we understand that they are the cause of our existence, their satisfaction cannot be ensured. The need is to recognize that the citizen is the purpose of our organization and all the rules, regulations, procedures etc are there to facilitate the delivery of services to him. In this context, it also becomes essential that these rules, regulations procedures etc are regularly reviewed; processes reengineered and made citizen friendly. 9. The handling of public grievances in this regard is a vital activity. Public grievances provide us an opportunity to introspect. These are feedback on our systems and services and should be accepted as positive criticism providing an opportunity to rectify our mistakes. While handling the grievances we need not necessarily be defensive to somehow justify our actions. By submitting a grievance an individual reposes his or her faith in us that we will listen to him and will take immediate action to provide him redress. The grievances also need to be analysed with a view to identify grievance prone areas that need to be studied so that the bottlenecks in the system are removed and better quality and efficiency is brought to our services. I am happy that Delhi Government has provided a system of on line lodging of public grievances, which is monitored in the Chief Minister’s office. I hope that grievances lodged there are promptly attended to and redress provided to complainants. 10. There have been mixed experiences in implementing the Citizen’s Charter initiative in the Government. It has been felt that there is a need for effective improvement in the area of client awareness, employee involvement, training, delegation of powers and process improvement including redress of grievances. 11. Government is constantly making efforts in ensuring effective implementation of the Citizen’s Charters. Identifying the problems related to formulation, implementation, evaluation, etc. of the Citizen’s Charter and thereafter assisting the Government machinery to overcome these obstacles are on the agenda of the Government. The Government of India is organizing the Capacity Building Workshops for the States and Union Territories with a view to generate awareness amongst employees, and meeting their training needs for implementing the charters. You have to bring in the attitudinal changes as head of the organizations. Besides, review for reengineering the processes and delegation of powers to enable field functionaries to effectively discharge their duties is also to be carried out at your level. 12. Delhi Government has so far formulated 76 Charters covering most of the services. Besides, the Bhagidari initiative introduced by the Government of Delhi also provides an opportunity for better consultation process and communication with the citizen. Much better results can be achieved by integrating the two concepts and reviewing the charters on the basis of feedback received during the meetings of Bhagidari as well as grievances received on line in the Chief Minister’s Office. 13. As senior bureaucrats, you play a very important role in Government by leading the work force and aligning the Government machinery to meet the challenges before us in providing quality public service. You have to play a major role in bringing this paradigm shift in governance and make it citizen centric. I am sure that this Workshop being organized by Delhi Government will help us in achieving this objective. |
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