Kohima, March 12 (MExN): As part of its two week celebration of World Consumer Rights Day, the Nagaland Voluntary Consumers’ Organisation (NVCO) drew attention on the need for legislation that will ensure effective public service delivery for citizens and curb corruption in the state government machinery.
In a press release on Friday, NVCO President Kezhokhoto Savi underscored that every citizen is entitled to hassle-free public service and redressal of grievances. He stated that the Right to Public Services Act comprises of statutory laws which guarantee time-bound delivery of various public services rendered to citizens and provides mechanism for punishing the errant public servants if they are deficient in providing the stipulated services.
Further, he said under the legislation, if the concerned officer fails to provide the service in time, the officer would have to pay a fine. He stated that the Act 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 the 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,” the NVCO president stated.
Savi also cited instances of other states in India which had enacted the Act and pointed out that the said Act holds government officials accountable and helps the government weed out corruption from the grassroots level to the top.
Once such example, he said was the Rajasthan government which has implemented the Rajasthan Guarantee Delivery of Public Services Act, 2011 to ensure effective time-bound delivery of 108 services of 15 major government departments with a provision of cash penalty for the offenders ranging from Rs 250 to Rs 500 per day on undue delay.
Stating that the Nagaland State Government is yet to enact the Right to Public Services Act/law “which is found to be very much application to the state and to clean up the system to ensure smooth delivery of services to the people and crack down on erring officials,” Savi called on the state government to take advantage of the forthcoming World Consumer Rights Day and introduce similar legislation for effective public service delivery to its citizens.
