Soon after the completion of party’s three-day lok Sabha election review exercise, SAD president and Deputy Chief Minister Sukhbir Badal on Friday launched a “twin project” to provide 149 citizen services to the people without any Government interface as well as initiating the process of reforming five major departments.
For the purpose, Sukhbir has set up a “Mission Mode Committee” headed by the chief secretary, concerned administrative secretaries of the five departments, principal secretary to the Chief Minister SK Sandhu, additional principal secretary to CM Gaggandeep Singh Brar and political representatives including former ministers Tota Singh, Maheshinder Singh Grewal, Tikshan Sud and Dr Daljit Singh Cheema besides experts in relevant fields.
Chief Minister’s Adviser Maheshinder Singh Grewal has been asked to give names of any other political persons if needed to further strengthen the committee.The Deputy CM also directed that the committee members should visit four progressive states within next month to gauge how other States were loosening red tape and reforming their various departments.
Sukhbir, presiding over a meeting of key officers, maintained that the said twin project would be his “top priority”, and directed the officers concerned to immediately start working on setting up of computer kiosks in all villages that could provide access to all 149 citizen services to the people.
“My mission is to ensure that no citizen needs to interact with any government department. It is also my desire to complete this project by March 31, next,” he said.Outlining his second project, Sukhbir said that he wanted to implement reforms in the five major departments of Revenue, Power, local Bodies, Police and Excise and Taxation departments by March 31 next year.
During the course of three-day review exercise, it was felt that citizen services should be more easily available to the people, and corruption still remain a major issue in most of the departments in which the reforms initiated had not been implemented completely.
“In departments like Revenue and Power, citizens should not need to meet any government official. We must find out ways to register land without citizen having to deal with Patwari or Registrar. I want farmers to get their jamabandi, girdwari, copy of mutation and inteqal papers without interacting with any government official,” said Sukhbir.
He said similarly, in the case of the local Bodies department, citizens should be able to get their building maps, water and sewerage connections and change and land use certificates without dealing with officials.