Be Mains Ready

Approach

• Briefly explain the concept of citizens’ charters.
• Explain the significance and limitations in the Indian context.
• Suggest some reforms.
• Give a way forward.

Introduction

• Citizen’s Charter is a tool for facilitating the delivery of services to citizens with specified standards, quality, time frame etc. with commitments from the Organisation and its clients.
• This also includes expectations of the Organisation from the Citizen for fulfilling the commitment of the Organisation.
• The Citizen’s Charter is not legally enforceable and, therefore, is non-justiciable.
• Improving the quality of services, offering a choice for the users wherever possible, standards specifying what to expect within a time frame, value for taxpayers' money, accountability of the service provider (individual as well as Organization), transparency in rules, procedures, schemes and grievance redressal and making the service delivery participative are some principles of service delivery.

Body

Significance of Citizens’ Charter in India

• It empowers the citizens in relation to public service delivery and is significant for a large democracy like India.
  
  • It is emphasised on citizens as customers by ensuring that public services are responsive to the citizens they serve.
• The concept of Citizens’ Charter enshrines the trust between the service provider and its users. It enables greater responsiveness of officials towards the public.
• It holds the public official accountable for the power entrusted in him and enables the right sense of duty in spending public money collected through taxes and in providing citizens with necessary services.

Limitations of Citizens’ Charter in India

• Devoid of participative mechanisms: End-users, Civil society organizations and NGOs are not consulted when Charters are drafted.
• Poor design and content: Charters are not very meaningful and succinct, there remains an absence of critical information that end-users need to hold agencies accountable. Also, Charters are rarely updated making it a one-time exercise, frozen in time.
• Lack of public awareness: only a small percentage of end-users are aware of the commitments made in the charters since effective efforts of communicating and educating the public about the standards of delivery promise have not been undertaken.
• Measurable standards of delivery are rarely defined making it difficult to assess whether the desired level of service has been achieved or not.
• Organizations do not adhere to their Charters since there is no citizen friendly mechanism to compensate the citizen if the organization defaults.
• The tendency to have a uniform charters for all offices under the parent organization. Charters have still not been adopted by all Ministries/Departments. This overlooks local issues.

Way Forward

• Decentralised framing of charters, wide consultation processes, precise and firm commitments of service delivery standards to the citizens, redressal mechanism in case of default, periodic evaluation and better engagement of civil society are some of the reforms that can make citizens’ charters more effective in India.
• A Citizens’ Charter cannot be an end in itself, it is rather a means to an end - a tool to ensure that the citizen is always at the heart of any service delivery mechanism.
• Drawing from best practice models such as the Sevottam Model (a Service Delivery Excellence Model) can help CC in becoming more citizen centric.