No more missing deadlines: from April 1,babus pay penalty for delayed services

As part of the initiative,it will be mandatory for each department in the Delhi government to adhere to SLAs of the government and deliver services within a deadline. Significantly,the official concerned would be penalised if delivery of a service shoots past the deadline.

The government will begin with nine services for now,Delhi’s IT Secretary Savitur Prasad said. While the basic framework for Jeevan is already in place,the government is also looking at keeping track of the status of these services provided online.

“Jeevan is already functioning through its 260 kiosks in the city,” Prasad said. “We have an internal system of tracking the status of services provided by various departments. This will now be digitised and accessed online.”

Project Jeevan is a single-window interface between the government and citizens for nearly 45 services,largely for payment of various utility bills such as electricity,power and water. Started by the government in January 2008,the project operates through 260 kiosks across Delhi.

One can also pay property and income tax dues at these kiosks,and book train tickets,among others.

According to Prasad,services identified for the pilot run include issuing driver’s licence,voter I-cards,ration cards,birth certificates (in NDMC areas only),and electricity and water bills.

While SLA mandates penalties on officers who fail to deliver services within the time-frame stipulated,project head A K Singla said the government is keen to integrate all services. “The onus will then lie on respective departments to penalise the officer at fault,” he said. “We are first looking at facilitating people by providing a single window for all public dealing,then set a time-frame and keep track of it.”

Singla said the government is also roping in services for transfer of Employees Provident Fund through its Jeevan centres.

Services chosen for pilot run
* Issuing driver’s licence
* Voter I-card
* Ration card
* Birth certificates (in NDMC areas only)
* Electricity and water bills,among others