Citizen Centric Administration: Summary | Indian Polity for UPSC CSE PDF Download

Summary of Recommendation on Citizen Centric Administration

ARC has been asked to examine the following aspects of this issue:

• Accountable and Transparent Government.
• Progressive interventions to make administration more result-oriented.
• Strengthening Citizen Centric decision making.
• Freedom of Information.
• Social Capital, Trust and Participative public service delivery

Past initiatives

• Central Vigilance Commission (CVC) was set up by the Government of India in 1964.
• Many States have constituted ‘Lokayuktas’.
• Computerised Grievances Redressal Mechanisms: A Computerized Public
• Grievances Redressal and Monitoring System (CPGRAMS) were installed.
• All the grievances received are entered in this system and processed.
• Right to Information: In recognition of the need for transparency in public affairs, the Indian Parliament enacted the Right to Information Act, 2005.

Citizens’ Charters: each organization should spell out the services it has to perform and then specify the standards/norms for these services. Once this is done then the organisation can be held to account if the service standards are not met.
Good governance: It aims at providing an environment in which all citizens irrespective of class, caste and gender can develop to their full potential. In addition, good governance also aims at providing public services effectively, efficiently and equitably to the citizens.

The 4 pillars on which the edifice of good governance rests, in essence are:

• Ethos (of service to the citizen),
• Ethics (honesty, integrity and transparency),
• Equity (treating all citizens alike with empathy for the weaker sections), and
• Efficiency (speedy and effective delivery of service without harassment
• and using ICT increasingly).
• Citizens are thus at the core of good governance. Therefore, good governance and citizen centric administration are inextricably linked.

Citizen centric administration feature is not new to India

• Indian state embody the concept of a Welfare State and are a unique feature of our Constitution.
• To this end, a robust legal framework has been created. Institutions such as the National Human Rights Commission, National Women’s Commission, National Consumer Disputes Redressal Commission, and Lokayuktas, etc. have been set up.
• Several other measures including affirmative action’s have been initiated for the socio-economic empowerment of the weaker sections of society.
• As a democratic country, a central feature of good governance is the constitutionally protected right to elect government at various levels in a fair manner, with effective participation by all sections of the population..

Perceptions about Governance in India: Public administration in India is generally perceived to be unresponsive, insensitive and corrupt. For the common man, bureaucracy denotes routine and repetitive procedures, paper work and delays.
Barriers to Good Governance:

• Attitudinal Problems of the Civil Servants: wooden, inflexible, self- perpetuating and inward looking. Consequently, their attitude is one of indifference and insensitivity to the needs of citizens
• Lack of Accountability: inability within the system to hold the Civil Services accountable for their actions. Seldom are disciplinary proceedings initiated against delinquent government servants and imposition of penalties is even more rare.
• Red Tapism: Government servants sometimes become overly pre- occupied with rules and procedures and view these as an end in themselves.
• Low levels of Awareness of the Rights and Duties of Citizens: Inadequate awareness about their rights prevents citizens from holding erring government servants to account.
• Ineffective Implementation of Laws and Rules: There is a large body of laws in the country, each legislated with different objectives, weak implementation can cause a great deal of hardship to citizens and even erode the faith of the citizenry in the government machinery.

Need for Reforms

• Integrated index to measure the quality of governance is needed
• Sound legal framework.
• Robust institutional mechanism for proper implementation of the laws and their effective functioning.
• Competent personnel staffing these institutions; and sound personnel management policies.
• Right policies for decentralization, delegation and accountability.
• Re-engineering processes to make governance ‘citizen centric’.
• Adoption of appropriate modern technology.
• Right to information.
• Citizens’ charters.
• Independent evaluation of services.
• Grievance redressal mechanisms.
• Active citizens’ participation – public-private partnerships.
• Decentralization, Delegation and Accountability
• Transparency and Right to Information
• citizens’ charters
• service delivery surveys
• social audits
• citizens’ report card
• outcome surveys
• Grievance Redressal Mechanisms
• Process Simplification

Functions of Government: Government organisations should adhere to the principles 4 while performing regulatory functions.

• introduce the Single Window Agency concept within their organisations to minimize delays and maximize convenience to citizens.
• draw a roadmap with timelines for expeditious creation of a single window at the local level for provision of all developmental and regulatory services to citizens.
• The principle of subsidiarity should be followed while deciding on the implementation machinery for any programme.
• Citizens should be actively involved in all stages of these programmes i.e. planning, implementation and monitoring.
• Mandatory social audit should be carried out for all progrmames.
• Impact assessment should be carried out for all programmes at periodic intervals.

Making Citizens’ Charters Effective
Citizens’ Charters should be made effective by adopting the following principles:

• One size does not fit all.
• Wide consultation which include Civil Society in the process.
• Internal processes and structure should be reformed to meet the
• commitments given in the Charter.
• Redressal mechanism in case of default.
• Periodic evaluation of Citizens’ Charters.
• Benchmark using end-user feedback.
• Hold officers accountable for results.

Model for Citizen Centricity

Citizen’s Participation in Administration

• suitable mechanism for receipt of suggestions from citizens- ‘Suggestion Box’
• fool-proof system for registration of all complaints
• a prescribed time schedule for response and resolution,
• Use of tools of information technology can help to make such a system more accessible for citizens.

Timebound resolution of the complaints of citizens.

• Regular citizens’ feedback and survey and citizens’ report cards should be evolved by all government organisations for gauging citizens’ responses to their services.
  • Participation of Women and the Physically Challenged
  • Delegation
  • Evolving an Effective Public Grievances Redressal System
  • Analysis and Identification of Grievance Prone Areas
  • Consumer Protection- Lok Adalats would be effective in settling many consumer disputes.

Sevottam model: a quality management framework applicable to public service delivery organisations, in all its departments.
Objective: Improve the quality of public service delivery in the country.
Seven Steps in Sevottam Model

• Define services and identify clients.
• Set standards and norms for each service.
• Develop capability to meet the set standards.
• Perform to achieve the standards.
• Monitor performance against the set standards.
• Evaluate impact through an independent mechanism.
• Continuous improvement based on monitoring and evaluation.

Three Modules in Sevottam Framework

• Citizen Charter.
• Public Grievance Mechanism.
• Service Delivery Capability.

Meghalaya’s social audit law:

• In April 2017, Meghalaya became the first State in the country to pass a social audit legislation, the Meghalaya Community Participation and Public Services Social Audit Act.
• Act mandated social audits across 21 schemes and 11 departments.
• Meghalaya audits had been built on traditional tribal institutions, leveraging their inherent strengths and facilitating their engagement with contemporary democratic practices.
• audits were deliberately positioned to be a platform for
  • Sharing information about schemes.
  • Enhancing awareness amongst people about their entitlements. o Detecting beneficiaries who were eligible
  • Recording people’s testimonies and registering of grievances
  • Identifying priorities for inputs for planning.

Lokpal and Lokayukta

• Lokpal and Lokayukta Act, 2013 provided for the establishment of Lokpal for the Union and Lokayukta for States.
• These institutions are statutory bodies without any constitutional status
• They perform the function of an “ombudsman” and inquire into allegations
• of corruption against certain public functionaries and for related matters.
• Lokpal Jurisdiction– includes Prime Minister, Ministers, members of Parliament, Groups A, B, C and D officers and officials of Central Government.