CITIZEN’S CHARTER & SEVOTTAM MODEL

CITIZEN’S CHARTER & SEVOTTAM MODEL

A Citizen’s Charter is a document of commitments made by a Government organization to the citizens/client groups in respect of the services/schemes to be provided to them. The objective of the Charter exercise is to build bridges between citizens and administration and to streamline administration in tune with the needs of citizens.

Benefits of Citizen’s Charter in India

1. For Government Agencies
   • Public Commitment: It encourages efficacy and efficiency in public policymaking due to the moral imperative of adhering to the charter.
   • Reduces Corruption: Adhering to the charter helps in reducing institutional malpractices as public bodies become more committed to public welfare.
   • Judicious use of resources: As agencies become aware of the public funds at their disposal, they also practice prudence and check any leakages.
   • Enhanced service delivery: With a focus on better scheme outcomes it improves service quality and delivery.
   • Public Faith: A government functioning to the benefit of the public at large also enjoys greater public trust and approval rates.
2. For Citizens
   • Social Contract: It helps instill faith in citizens in state policies and decisions.
   • Overall Happiness: It improves happiness and satisfaction levels within the public as policies become more ethical and citizen-centric.
   • Public Participation: It enhances people’s participation in the governance process and the credibility of the government.
   • Social Welfare: As optimisation takes place in public services, they give better results and thus come closer to the intended welfare purposes.

Issues with Citizen’s Charter in India

1. Formulation
   • No Legal Framework: The citizen’s charter is not legally enforceable and thus no agency is bound to adopt its standards.
   • Awareness: There is a lack of awareness among the public as well as State employees about citizen’s charters.
   • Non-Consensus Oriented: The charters were drafted without any consultation or inputs from stakeholders like the civil society and public activist groups.
   • Lack of Policy Focus: No funds have been specifically earmarked for awareness generation of Citizens’ Charter or for orientation of staff on various components of the Charter.
   • Not Inclusive: It has been seen to not include the interest of women, the disabled, the elderly, and minorities.
   • Charters are rarely updated: Making it a one-time exercise, frozen in time.
2. Implementation
   • Linguistic Barriers: Charters have not been prepared in vernacular language.
   • “One Size Fit All” Approach: The charter is uniform across all departments and thus does not inculcate their inherent difference in functioning and requirements.
   • Lack of Training: For any Charter to succeed, the employees responsible for its implementation should have proper training and orientation. However, in many cases, the concerned staff were not adequately trained and sensitized.
   • Poor Information Dissemination: Critical information that end-users need to hold agencies accountable is missing in charters.
   • Lack of Implementation: Adequate publicity to the Charters had not been given in any of the Departments evaluated. In most Departments, the Charters are only in the initial or middle stage of implementation.
   • Absence of Grievance Redressal Mechanism: Most of the charters have poor or absent grievance redressal mechanisms.
   • Poor Publicity: The public is poorly informed about their rights.
3. Assessment
   • No Feedback: Feedback is hardly taken to improve the nature of the Citizen charter.
   • No Updation: Citizen charters are not timely updated as per the ongoing changes.

Way Forward

• Redressal Mechanisms: There should be well-laid-out redressal mechanisms in the event of any default by the department’s standards of service delivery.
• Attitudinal Shift: The issuance of the Citizens’ Charter will not change overnight the mindset of the staff and the clients. Therefore, regular, untiring, and persistent efforts are required to bring about the attitudinal changes.
• Integrated Management: The charter initiative should have a built-in mechanism for monitoring, evaluating, and reviewing the working of the Charters, preferably through an outside agency.

• Raising Awareness: Need for wider publicity of the Charter through print media, posters, banners, leaflets, handbills, brochures, local newspapers, etc., and also through electronic media.
• Consensus Oriented: Citizen’s charter must be made after consultation with all stakeholders like civil society.
• Individual Accountability: Enforcement officers and staff must be held accountable for the implementation of the values of the charter.
• Budget Allocation: Earmarking of specific budgets for awareness generation and orientation of staff.
• Database Creation: Need for creation of a database on consumer grievances and redress.
• Replication of Best Practices: Case study of all Citizen Charters should be collated, and best practices in this field should be replicated.

Suggestions by the 2nd ARC

• One size does not fit all: Citizen’s Charter should be prepared for each independent unit under the overall umbrella of the organization’s charter.
• More Consensus Based: Need for citizens and staff to be consulted at every stage of formulation of the Charter.
• Domestic Reform: Internal process and structure should be reformed to meet the commitments given in the Charter. Redress mechanism is the case of default.
• Evaluation of Progress: Periodic evaluation and updating of Citizen’s Charter.
• Public Feedback: Making benchmarks using end-user feedback.
• Organizational Accountability: Hold officers accountable for results.

Other Information on Citizen Charter 

The basic objective of the Citizen’s Charter is to empower the citizen in relation to public service delivery. The six principles of the Citizen’s Charter movement as originally framed are as below:

• Quality: Improving the quality of services
• Choice: Providing choice wherever possible
• Standards: Specify what to expect and how to act if standards are not met
• Value: Add value for the taxpayers’ money
• Accountability: Be accountable to individuals and organisations
• Transparency: Ensure transparency in Rules/Procedures/Schemes/Grievances.

Components of Citizen Charter

• Vision and Mission Statement of the Organisation.
• Details of Business transacted by the Organisation.
• Details of ‘Customers’ or ‘Clients’.
• Statement of services including standards, quality, time frame, etc., provided to Customer/Client and how/where to get the services.
• Details of Grievance Redressal Mechanism and how to access it.
• Expectations from the service recipients.

SEVOTTAM MODEL

Sevottam is an administrative measure to improve the quality of public services in India. The term “Sevottam” comes from the Hindi words “Seva” and “Uttam”. It has 3 modules:

• Citizen’s Charter

• Service Delivery Capabilities
• Grievance Redressal

Pillars of Sevottam Model

• Citizen’s Charter: It requires effective charter implementation, thereby opening up a channel for receiving citizens’ inputs into the way in which organizations determine service delivery requirements.
• Grievance Redressal: It requires a good grievance redress system operating in a manner that leaves the citizen more satisfied with how the organization responds to complaints.
• Service Delivery Capability: It postulates that an organization can have an excellent performance in service delivery only if it is efficiently managing the key elements for good service delivery.

Benefits

• Self-Assessment: Organizations already motivated to improve service delivery can use it as a tool for self-evaluation.
• Drawback Analysis: It enables organizations to undertake a systematic, credible, and authenticated self-assessment for citizen-centric service delivery.
• Sustainable Improvements: It guides them through systematic initiatives for sustainable improvements in service delivery.
• Competitive Rating System: To reward organizations that are doing commendable work in service delivery.
• Timeliness: Time norms for specific services are enumerated in the Charter and the services and norms are made after discussions with all stakeholders.

Challenges

1. Policy
   • Transferable Posts: There can be a lack of continuity due to personnel being transferred frequently.
   • Training: Staff is not trained for such service delivery, which impedes the process.
2. Resources
   • No Budgetary Allocation: Operating such a model requires finances, and many offices will not be incentivized to render the model.
   • Understaffed: Human resources may not be enough for the proper operation of the model.
3. Attitude
   • Lower Management Burden: The burden of implementation falls on the lower management, which may not engage in it much.
   • Disincentivized: The staff has no real incentive to work for this other than external motivation.