Right to Public Services (RTS)
An Act where Citizen becomes the “King”
- Lok Satta TN’s Presentation
Citizen’s Right to Public Services
(RTS)
Present situation:
• Endless delays, red-tape and harassment
even for basic govt. services (certificates, etc.)
• Citizen’s Charters in TN only in name
• Citizens have no explicit, statutory right to
services (RTS)
Citizen’s Right to Public Services
(RTS)
Present situation:
• Corruption & poor accountability in
government offices
• Erring officials not penalized; citizens not
compensated for loss; poor grievance redressal
• Unlike MP, UP, Bihar, Rajasthan, Delhi, etc.
TN still does not have RTS for citizens
Statutory Law
• Guarantee’s time bound delivery of services for various
public services rendered by the Government to citizen
• Provides mechanism for punishing the errant public
servant who is deficient in providing the service
stipulated under the statute.
• A BILL “to lay down an obligation upon every public
authority to publish citizens charter stating therein the
time within which specified goods shall be supplied and
services be rendered and provide for a grievance
redressal mechanism for non-compliance of citizens
charter and for matters connected therewith or
incidental thereto.” (Defn in LSP’s Proposal)
Effects of the Law
• Reduce corruption among the government
officials
• Increase transparency and public
accountability
Framework
• Granting of "right to public services", which are to
be provided to the public by the designated
official within the stipulated time frame.
• The public services which are to be granted as a
right under the legislations are generally notified
separately through Gazette Notification
• Common Services - includes issuing caste, birth,
marriage and domicile certificates, electric
connections, voter’s card, ration cards, copies of
land records, etc.
Frameword (Contd..)
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On failure to provide the service by the designated officer within the given time or
rejected to provide the service, the aggrieved person can approach the First
Appellate Authority. The First Appellate Authority, after making a hearing, can
accept or reject the appeal by making a written order stating the reasons for the
order and intimate the same to the applicant, and can order the public servant to
provide the service to the applicant.
An appeal can be made from the order of the First Appellate Authority to the
Second Appellate Authority, who can either accept or reject the application, by
making a written order stating the reasons for the order and intimate the same to
the applicant, and can order the public servant to provide the service to the
applicant or can impose penalty on the designated officer for deficiency of service
without any reasonable cause, which can range from Rs. 500 to Rs. 5000 or may
recommend disciplinary proceedings. The applicant may be compensated out of
the penalty imposed on the officer. The appellate authorities has been granted
certain powers of a Civil Court while trying a suit under Code of Civil Procedure,
1908, like production of documents and issuance of summon to the Designated
officers and appellants.
Efforts of Lok Satta (So far..)
• Culmination of efforts mounted by the Lok Satta party for 15 long years.
• Dr. JP recalled that the Lok Satta had embarked on the mission to ensure
services to citizens as a matter of right way back on October 2, 1998. On
that day, the Lok Satta submitted a People's Charter to the then Governor
C. Rangarajan seeking delivery of 36 services in a time-bound manner.
Following its efforts, the State Government in 2001 ushered in a citizen's
charter in regard to five services in municipalities and implemented it for
some time.
• The right to services is the No. 1 demand of the Lok Satta Party's Surajya
movement launched in August 2012
• Lok Satta delegation appeared before the Parliamentary Committee and
requested it to adopt a Bill on citizens' services. The committee requested
it to draft the Bill bringing about convergence between delivery of normal
and electronic services. The Lok Satta drafted the Bill and submitted it to
the Parliamentary Committee and the Union Government. Dr. JP met the
Union Law Minister last month and requested him to ensure its
introduction in Parliament.
States which has RTS....
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MP – First State – 18 Aug 2010 - Shivraj Singh Chauhan led BJP government in M.P.
Bihar – 2nd – 25 July 2012
Delhi
Punjab
Rajasthan
HP
Kerala
Uttarakhand
Haryana
UP
Jharkhand
Karnataka
Chattisgarh
J&K
Odisha
Assam
Implementing State(u)s
Punjab
• Punjab - certified copies of all documents at village level,
record of land rights (Jamabandi), girdawri, mutation,
demarcation of land, sanction of water supply/sewerage
connection, certified copies of birth/death certificates,
registration certificate of vehicles, fitness certificate for
commercial vehicles, issue of driving licence and renewal of
arms licence, among others.
• All kinds of police verifications including passport
verification, issue of various certificates such as caste, OBC,
income, residence, registration of all kinds of documents,
sanction of all social security benefits for old age/
handicapped/ widow would also come under its purview,
he said
Bihar
• Bihar has the best system since it is linked to information technology,
which helps in monitoring appeals. There are also provisions like online
RTI and seizure of property of errant officials. MP has an appellate
authority – Transparency International
• As many as 50 services spread over 10 departments will be made available
to the people under the Right to Service Act, the principal secretary
(General Administration) Deepak Kumar told reporters here
• Bihar connecting to IT - The applications of the people seeking various
services will be fed into the computers and the applicants will be provided
an unique identity number which the concerned applicant were peruse on
the website of the general administration department for progress on
their request, he said. The applicants can also seek status of their
application on by sending SMS on their mobile phones by typing 'RTPS
space 56677', Kumar said, adding an applicant not having a cellphone can
dial on a toll free number to seek an update on their applications.
Uttarakhand & HP
• Uttarakhand - Revenue, health and family
welfare, transport, potable water, social
development, urban development and other
sectors.
• HP - Revenue, Transport, social development,
urban development and others will be bound
to provide citizen centric services within
stipulated time period, as a matter of right.
Delhi
• fixes a financial penalty in the range of Rs 10 to
Rs 200 per day for failing to deliver services while
making it a right of every citizen to obtain time
bound delivery of services from certain
government agencies.
• A maximum penalty of Rs 5,000 can be imposed
on officials for failing to deliver services.
• The departments which have been included
under the legislation are Revenue, Food and Civil
Supplies, Transport and Trade and Taxes as well as
civic agencies MCD and NDMC.
Jharkhand
• Payment of social security pension, new connection for electricity,
making and renewal of driving licence, issuance of smart card,
ration cards, agriculture related licences, correction of power bills,
payment of scholarship, post-mortem report, duplicate driving
license, offering licenses for ration and medical shops, and
caste/income/residential certificates have been brought under
purview of the Right to Service Act.
• As per the Act, bill correction has to be done within 24 hours to 7
days, while post-mortem report has to be issued within 3 days.
Similarly, any complaint related to payment of social security
pension has to be cleared within 21 days. Driving license must be
issued within 45 days and licenses for shops and medicine shops
need to be issued within a month.
Rajasthan
• The act aims at a time-bound rendering of 108
services of 15 departments.
• Appeals regarding all sanctions, no objection
certificates and licences of 15 departments
including power, police, health, revenue, UDH
and others could be made to the designated
officer of the department.
Kerala – 13th State
• In the first phase, 13 government services and nine services related
to police department will come under the purview of the
legislation, which provides for action, including a penalty, against
the designated officer if he fails to provide the service within the
time frames. The fine ranges from Rs500 to Rs5,000.
• Certificates of birth, death, denomination of caste, income,
domicile; power connection to households and commercial shops;
domestic water connections; issue of ration cards are among
government services covered by the draft bill. The services related
to police department include receipts to complaints filed with
police; issue of copy of FIR; police intervention in grievous crimes;
time-bound verification of passport and employment status; issue
of copy of post-mortem report; and releasing vehicles under
custody.
Karnataka - Sakala
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The Department of Personal and Administrative Reform (DPAR), Government Of Karnataka with the
support of NIC successfully implemented the Sakala scheme under the Karnataka Guarantee of
Services to Citizens Act. The Chief Minister of Karnataka Sadananda Gowda inaugurated Sakala at
the podium block in Visvesvaraya Tower, Bangalore on 2 April 2012. A total of 151 services in 11
major government departments (Commercial Taxes, Education, Food and Civil Supplies, Health and
Family Welfare, Home, Labour, Revenue , Transport and Rural Development and Panchayat Raj )
are covered by Sakala. The official website of Sakala: http://sakala.kar.nic.in provides a tracking
application by which the status of an application is provided to citizens. In case of any delay or
default in delivering the requested service, the applicant can seek compensation at the rate of 20
per day of delay subject to a maximum of 500 from the officer concerned. The system updates the
citizen on the progress of the service request through SMS to the mob number specified in the
application.
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Karnataka Sakala Services Act is now effectively implemented with 30 departments/organisations
providing 265 services to the citizens of Karnataka. Citizens could access details from
www.sakala.kar.nic.in Already, more than 1.6 crore citizens have availed various services under this
portal. This has helped to re-orient the brand image of the Government by providing efficient
service and minimising corruption on service delivery.
Odisha & Assam
• Odisha - 75 selected services from 11
departments in this bill, which would be sent to
the governor seeking his assent.
• Assam - The notified service is likely to include
ration cards, birth and death certificates, water,
power connections and works related to land
revenue departments.The state government from
time to time will notify the services, including
provisions of fast track service delivery or Tatkal
Sewa.
Gujarat?
• However, four controversial bills are yet to be
approved. These are the Gujarat Lokayukta
Aayog Bill 2013, the Gujarat (Right of Citizens
to Public Services) Bill 2013, the Gujarat State
School Service Commission Bill 2013 and the
Universities Laws (amendment) Bill 2013.
Demo (Karnataka site)
• http://sakala.kar.nic.in/gsc_home.aspx
Citizen’s Right to Public Services
(RTS)
Issues for discussion/proposals:
• Explicit, statutory and liberal right to all
public services for empowering citizens – on
lines of the historic RTI Act
• RTS to curb bribery and corruption in
government offices
• Mandatory, statutory Citizen’s Charters for all
government offices for public services – no
supply constraint
Citizen’s Right to Public Services
(RTS)
Issues for discussion/proposals:
• Clearly defined
- Time-limits for services and grievances (1-3
days)
- Penalties for delays – Rs. 250/day upto Rs.
50,000
- Rewards for performance
- Compensations to citizens
• Grievance Redressal Commission – integration
with Information Commission
• Services Delivery to be convergent with
Electronic Services Delivery (EDS)
Q&A