Kohima, December 22 (MExN): The Nagaland Voluntary Consumers’ Organisation (NVCO), during the consumer awareness on ‘Public Services Delivery’ held on December 22, stated that Nagaland State Government is yet to enact the Right to Public Services Act/law “which is found to be very much applicable to the state and to clean up the system to ensure smooth delivery of services to the people and crack down on erring officials.”
On the 5th day of the week-long observance of National Consumer Day at the state capital Kohima, the NVCO asked the State Government to introduce similar legislation for effective public service delivery to its citizen in the state and would also curb corruption in the state government functionaries.
A press release issued by Press & Media Cell, NVCO stated that delivering on the topic of ‘Public Services Delivery’ NVCO, President, Kezhokhoto Savi stated that every citizen is entitled to hassle-free public services and redresses of his grievances. Accordingly, the Right to Public Services Act represents the commitment of the particular state towards standard, quality and time frame of service delivery, grievances redressal mechanism, transparency and accountability.
Right to Public Services legislation in India comprises statutory laws which guarantee time-bound delivery of various public services rendered to citizens and provides mechanism for punishing the errant public servant if they are is deficient in providing the stipulated services.
Right to Service legislation ensures delivery of time bound services to the public. If the concerned officer fails to provide the service in time, he will have to pay a fine. Thus, it is aimed to reduce corruption among the government officials and to increase transparency and public accountability. Currently, public officials and civil servants are considered as one of the troubled sections of our society due to their slow and painful process in performing their duties. As a result, the common man, who is entitled to avail hassle-free public services and information thereof, has to face a lot of problems and pay bribes to avail the needed public services. Therefore, the buzz against corruption is now matched by Right to services related initiatives by several governments to clean up the system.
The ‘Model Public Service Law’ covers the functionaries providing important social services like education, health, rural development, etc., and commit them to their duties and for that purpose, legislative Department has attempted a tentative Bill titled the Public Services(Protection and regulation) Bill. The common framework of the state legislation includes, granting of “right to public services”, which are to be provided to the public by the designated official within the stipulated time frame.
Some of the commonly provided public services, including issuing caste, birth, marriage and domicile certificates, electric connections, voter’s card, ration cards, copies of land records, etc. within the fixed time frame. On failure to provide the service by the designated officer, the aggrieved person can approach the First Appellate Authority/Second appellate Authority. It can order the public servant to provide the needed service to the applicant and can impose penalty on the designated officer for deficiency of service without any reasonable cause. The applicant may be compensated out of the penalty imposed on the officer.
