To provide citizen-centric services closer to their homes, the Punjab Government has established 2,147 unified service delivery centres — Sewa Kendras — in both rural and urban areas in Punjab where, at present, 78 services notified under the Right to Service Act, 2011, are being delivered.
“More services notified under RTS Act, 2011, shall be delivered in phased manner. Giving tremendous relief to the citizen, the government has initiated the service of collecting electricity bills at all urban sewa kendras from September 26,” said Deputy Chief Minister Sukhbir Badal.
He said that the objective of establishing these centres at every 1.5 to two kilometres in urban areas and for every four-five villages in rural areas was to facilitate citizens who were earlier required to travel 20-25 kilometres and have to stand in long queues for availing basic services like caste certificate, birth and death services, social security pensions etc.
Sewa Kendras will act as a one-stop government outlet for delivery of services to citizens in time-bound manner as laid down in the Right to Service Act, 2011, which was brought to bring the transparency and accountability in the whole service delivery eco-system, said Sukhbir.
Deputy Chief Minister said that these Sewa Kendras will be connected to various government offices through state wide area network (SWAN) or internet and the service request received at these centres shall be transferred electronically to the back office, that will process these requests and final output (certificate, licence or permits etc) shall be delivered at the Sewa Kendras counters.
“This will reduce the interaction of citizens with various government offices and will lead to elimination of malpractices, corruption and will bring ease to common man to get government services in time,” he said adding that the application forms would be provided at Sewa Kendras at nominal charges and no file-charges will be taken.