Question : ACCOUNTABILITY OF ADMINISTRATION

(a) whether the Government has failed in making the administration accountable;

(b) if so, the details thereof and the reaction of the Government thereto;

(c) whether there is discontent against the inefficient and slow delivery of services provided by the Government departments/agencies and a number of complaints have been received in this regard;

(d) if so, the details thereof, Ministry/ department-wise; and

(e) the steps taken by the Government to ensure efficient and timely delivery of public services and to make administration accountable in this regard?

MINISTER OF THE STATE IN THE MINISTRY OF PERSONNEL, PUBLIC GRIEVANCE AND PENSIONS AND MINISTER OF THE STATE IN THE PRIME MINISTER`S OFFICE (SHRI V. NARAYANASAMY)

(a) to (e) No, Madam. The Government is committed to making administration accountable and ensuring efficient and timely delivery of public services, including timely redressal of grievances. A few major steps taken are listed below:

i. Citizens Charter as a tool for empowering citizens with information about the government organization and services delivered by it, was introduced in 1997 and a special portal was created in 2000. 131 Central Government and 729 State Government organizations created their Citizens Charters.

ii. In 2005, the Citizens Charter was made a part of the newly created Quality Management System (QMS) called Sevottam, for bringing continual improvements in public service delivery. For capability building of employees eight workshops were organized. This was done to make the Citizens Charter Sevottam Compliant - (a) as a document of commitment for standards of service delivery by a government organization, and (b) for giving contact details of persons responsible for each service delivery. In addition, a grievance redress mechanism was also included in the Citizen Charter for cases, where services were not delivered as per scheduled time limits. Till March, 2013, 72 Central Ministries /Departments have created and uploaded their sevottam compliant Citizen Charters on their websites.

iii. Centralised Public Grievances Redress and Monitoring System (CPGRAMS) http://pgportal.gov.in is a web based portal for grievance redressal. At present, it connects 105 Central Ministries/ Departments/ Organisations along with their 8894 subordinates/field offices across the country. The citizens may lodge their grievances, including complaints about service delivery, through this portal anytime, anywhere, and send it directly to the government organization concerned. During 2013-14, sixteen review meetings on pendency of grievances have been organized for speedy disposal of grievances.

iv. Taking a Rights based approach, the Government has introduced ‘The Right of Citizens for Time Bound Delivery of Goods and Services and Redressal of Their Grievances Bill, 2011, in the Lok Sabha on 20.12.2011. The Bill makes it mandatory for all public authorities to prepare and publish their Citizens Charter with service standards for each service and time limits for redressal of grievances, in case services are not delivered as per commitment made in the Citizens’ Charter. The bill is under consideration of Lok Sabha.