Coming soon: A law to guarantee govt services

In what is being billed as PM's next big move after RTI,the PMO has decided to implement the concept of service-level agreements.

In what is being billed as Prime Minister Manmohan Singhs next big move after Right to Information,the PMO has decided to implement the concept of service-level agreements. This will mandate penalties to be deducted from salaries of dealing officials if there are delays in providing citizen services like issuing ration cards and driving licences.

Its learnt that Delhi will be getting off the blocks first in April 2010. The PMO is targeting Delhi and then the Union Territories,and hopes other states begin taking the initiative on their own as many of the services fall under state subjects.

This far reaching move will essentially convert existing citizen charters,which are largely a statement of intent,into a SLAs that make it binding on authorities to help provide certain services in a timebound manner.

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It adds teeth by levying a fine or a penalty that would be deducted from dealing officials salary if deadlines are not met. While the fine amount is still to be finalized,sources said,the broad consensus is on Rs 200 to begin with in Delhi.

Against much resistance and after several rounds of consultation,sources said,the Delhi government agreed to implement the SLAs from next April. At a meeting with the Delhi government last month in the PMO,it was decided to initially cover nine services. These include:

 Issuing of ration cards

 Issuing and renewal of driving licences

 Registration of voters

 Issuing of voter identity cards

 Registration of births

 Registration of deaths

 Registration under Department of Value Added Tax

 Issuing of SC certificate

 Issuing of OBC certificates

The government will issue a notification to make the SLAs statutory and just as commercial establishments are bound by their public claims,officials say the aim here is to bind government departments to time commitments for the service they seek to provide.

According to SLAs,the clock starts ticking the moment the department concerned accepts the application form for any of the above services. A dealing official will be identified and the applicant will be informed at the point of submission of forms about who will be handling the case.

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In fact,the agreement makes it clear that the onus to help an applicant complete and submit the form also falls on the officials of the department concerned. Once accepted,it will be assumed that all formalities have been completed and a time limit will be set for each applicants case. If any shortcomings are detected in the form after it has been accepted,then the SLAs hold the official who accepted the form accountable and not the applicant.

Given that this will be all computerized,the monitoring on each officials performance will be done electronically and if there is a delay,then a penalty will automatically be deducted from the salary of the official responsible for this through what are known as TR-5 (treasury receipts).

To ensure that officials dont buck the system by delaying the submission of forms,sources said plans are afoot to separate the officials dealing with the case from those who would accept the forms. This way any vested interest could be avoided at the time of accepting forms.

The Delhi government wanted to first start the process manually and then move to monitoring SLAs on an e-governance platform. This was,however,rejected by the PMO which has insisted on a centralized web system to monitor the SLAs.

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This is now being developed at a quick pace following pressure from the PMO,which wants the entire process to be brought on e-stream and made public on April 1,2010 in Delhi. To this end,Delhi government has been asked to re-engineer the identified services,if needed,which means making forms more user-friendly,removing needless documentation requirements among other steps before next April.