Mains Practice Questions

Approach

• Define what is e-citizen charter and its importance in brief
• Discuss its major principles and components.
• Briefly define what is PRAGATI.
• Explain its features and how it redresses grievances.
• Conclude briefly

Introduction

E- Citizen Charter is an aspect of e-governance where the government services are provided through the application of information and communication technology (ICT). A Citizen’s Charter is the expression of an understanding between citizens and the provider of public service with respect to the quantity and quality of services the former receives. It is essentially about the rights of the public and the obligations of the public servants.

Body

The concept was first articulated and implemented in the United Kingdom in 1991. The basic six principles of the Citizen’s Charter are:

• Quality: Improving the quality of services;
• Choice: Wherever possible;
• Standards: Specifying what to expect and how to act if standards are not met;
• Value: For the taxpayers’ money;
• Accountability: Individuals and Organisations; and
• Transparency: Rules and procedures to be followed for grievance redressal.

The major components of a citizen’s charter are-

• Vision and Mission Statement;
• Details of Business transacted by the Organisation;
• Details of clients;
• Details of services provided to each client group;
• Details of grievance redressal mechanism and how to access it; and
• Expectations from the clients.

PRAGATI application: Effective Grievance redressal mechanism

PRAGATI stands for Pro-Active Governance And Timely Implementation. As the name suggests, it is aimed at starting a culture of Pro-Active Governance and Timely Implementation. It is also a robust system for bringing e-transparency and e-accountability with real-time presence and exchange among the key stakeholders. PRAGATI App is helping in effective grievance redressal mechanism in the following way:

• The PRAGATI platform uniquely bundles three latest technologies: digital data management, video-conferencing and geo-spatial technology.With this, the Prime Minister is able to discuss the issues with the concerned officials with full information and the latest visuals of the ground level situation which is an innovative project in e-governance.
• It is a three-tier system i.e, PMO, Union Government Secretaries, and Chief Secretaries of the States and thus bring them on one stage. With this, the Prime Minister will be able to directly discuss the issues with the concerned central and state officials.
• Prime Minister will hold a monthly programme where he will interact with the officials through video-conferencing enabled by data and geo-informatics visuals; The programme will be held once in every month on the fourth Wednesday at 3.30 PM-to be known as PRAGATI Day.
• Issues to be flagged before the authorities will be picked up from the available database public grievances redressal will be done accordingly.
• It gives an elaborate and timely mechanism for effective grievance redressal.

Conclusion

Citizen charter is a robust institutional mechanism for the proper implementation of laws and the delivery of laws. Applications like PRAGATI would certainly help in the effective grievance redressal and ultimately curbing the red tapism and corruption.