FPJ Analysis: Cleaning Up The Government

For the average citizen, governments and public services are constantly making it easier to pay their bills online, but the corollary of accessing entitlements and services with equal ease is painfully missing. It is, therefore, interesting that Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister N. Chandrababu Naidu has embarked on a fresh initiative to raise public satisfaction with the delivery of services and bring about ‘zero corruption’. He has created a baseline for this using a survey by a research institute of what people think about government performance. Years ago, in undivided Andhra Pradesh, Naidu adopted a techno-centric administrative paradigm, which used a data and dashboard approach to monitor all arms of government. He is now back with a second avatar of administrative reforms. Tellingly, the responses to the AP survey carried out through an interactive voice response system and the Centre for the Study of Developing Societies (CSDS) indicate that there is considerable dissatisfaction among the public about service delivery, notably on police response to women’s safety, registration services and electricity supply. The task before the AP government, and, indeed, other states and the Union government, is to shift the onus of service delivery to the respective departments. This is not a new concept and is, in fact, a decade-old initiative which was given concrete form during the UPA government of Manmohan Singh through two rights-based pieces of legislation, one on time-bound delivery of services and grievance redress and another on electronic delivery of services. Unfortunately, the lack of political consensus and a severely disrupted Parliament led to the lapsing of both bills.

For Naidu to achieve sustainable impact in his goal to remove corruption in government services, a Right to Services law that is as elegant as the Right to Information law could be the answer. The UPA legislation has some useful pointers on how to make various departments and public agencies accountable: prescribe a simple procedure to apply online, set a time limit for processing, make it mandatory for officials to comply or explain, create a complaints mechanism online, and finally, set up service delivery commissions at the state level that would have statutory authority to levy a stiff penalty on erring officials. Interoperability among various departments is a basic requirement for such an integrated system to function properly. One major reason online government services fail is the lack of investment in suitable technologies, including robust hardware and networks, and training, resulting in frequent glitches and breakdowns. Another is sabotage by the bureaucracy through bad design of the system that introduces bottlenecks, non-transparent instructions and official discretion that culminates in demands for bribes. Registration departments are notorious for such practices. Making the RTI Act institutions stronger is another imperative. Currently, the Naidu government is wrestling with the State Information Commission over the appointment of its secretary, which does not advance the cause of transparency.