Government service delivery in a mess

Offices non–functiol, citizens harassed

BY OUR STAFF REPORTER

GUWAHATI, February 2: The main objective of any government is to provide quality and timely service to citizens, in sectors where only the government can operate or has a monopoly. If this is not done, it causes untold harassment to citizens.

In Assam, the State government talks about e–governce, Right to Services Act and other high–sounding administrative initiatives. But the majority of people do not get even basic services, right from the State Secretariat to block level offices. Many aggrieved people are forced to run from pillar to post in government offices even for redressal of small grievances, facing unnecessary harassment.

Due to the lackadaisical attitude of government officials, many grievance related files of common citizens are not cleared for months on end.

The iction and chaotic state of affairs in government offices is apparent when one visits the circle office, the SDO office, the DC office and even the State Secretariat, where hundreds of common people go on a daily basis for petty official works. 

According to sources, even if the the deputy commissioner or a departmental head is efficient, punctual and sincere, the employees under him or her have just the opposite traits. Majority of these lower level employees are inefficient, insincere and corrupt, which slows down the entire administrative machinery,  creating numerous hassles for common people. Such problems in government offices are aggravated by the fact that there is no proper mechanism in place to keep tabs on such employees.

“For the clearance of files at official levels, fixed time frames are there but it is not followed in the State government offices for reasons best known to them,” sources said. People visiting State government offices to get things done mostly get to hear lines like: “The officer concerned is on leave”, “You come after one week”, “Your file is being processed”, etc.

Recently, the State government formulated the Right to Services Act but many government departments do not have sufficient manpower to implement this Act for the benefit of people. 

Such inertia in the service delivery mechanism of the State government can be checked only if a strict monitoring system is put in place right from the Secretariat in Dispur to block level offices, so that inefficient officials can be detected. Only this can help provide timely and quality service to common citizens. Much vaunted programmes like Raijor Podulit Raijor Sarkar will not reduce the harassment of people.