Punjab Governance Reforms Minister Gurmeet Singh Meet Hayer and Local Bodies Minister Dr Inderbir Singh Nijjar on Thursday jointly carried out a surprise check at a Sewa Kendra under Ludhiana Municipal Corporation.
After scrutinizing ‘send back applications regarding citizen-centric services’ due to unnecessary objections by some MC officials, the Cabinet Ministers reached Sewa Kendra and quizzed concerned failing which they ordered a probe by a committee under supervision of MC Commissioner Dr Shena Aggarwal to check ‘malafide intentions’ behind pendency.
The Ministers said that Ludhiana had highest pendency rate of 0.42 percent send back files which was a matter of concern. A total of 5,39,000 applications were received in Ludhiana and 2,276 applications were pending before stipulated timeframe as mentioned under the Right to Services Act. Following which it was decided to look into this and each file was scanned by Government Reforms Department and surprisingly top five officials (responsible for scrutinising these files) with highest “send back pendency”) were from Ludhiana.
They said that to ensure transparent services to the people in the Sewa Kendras, the specially designed boards displaying the facilitation charges will be installed outside all Sewa Kendras.
Reiterating the State Government’s commitment to facilitate the people by ensuring hassle-free and smooth services, Hayer and Dr Nijjar pointed out that any kind of harassment to the people will not be tolerated at any cost and added each file is being deeply studied at high level. They said that Punjab Government was working round the clock to bring major reforms in citizen service delivery system by adopting e-governance in its functioning to facilitate people with ease.
It is pertinent to mention that while reviewing the working of Sewa Kender, it was found that State has 0.9 per cent average of send back while the average of Ludhiana pertains to six percent.
Many unnecessary and unclear objections like ‘call the applicant’, ‘attach mother school certificate copy’, ‘Last Cremation slip mismatched’, ‘Clear the objection’ (without mentioning objection) were raised by dealing officials which caused a lot of harassment to citizens. This also increased the pendency of approval of services. Hence, both the ministers made a surprise check at Sewa Kendra, Ludhiana.
The Ministers asserted that Punjab Government is preparing a roadmap to deliver the citizen services at the doorsteps so that people don't have to stand in queues or make rounds of public offices for availing the facility.
They said that for ease of public, the Punjab Government is preparing a mechanism under which documents for various services would be collected from the applicant’s doorstep and later delivered back.