Important Public Information- Hi, I feel it is my duty to share that in Uttarakhand we have a legal right The Right to Service- to get all public services like ration cards, licenses, map approvals, drinking water connections, certificates, domicile etc. within a given time limit. Each department has a Designated Officer. When we submit any application, the officer has to provide us the service in the time limit or give us reasons in writing if he rejects our application. We can complain for which the officer can be punished. I realized that this very useful law is virtually unknown so I did a story on it too. I shall be uploading a list of services-time limit- complaints authority. For now, here is my story for more information. Hope it helps.. Please spread awareness on this law. News report on RTS in The Pioneer MANY FRET AS STATE FAILS TO IMPLEMENT RTS EFFECTIVELY Monday, 02 June 2014 | Anupma Khanna It appears that when it comes to the important Right to Service (RTS), the State Government has failed in serving it right. Babli, a 40 years old domestic help is tired of doing rounds of the local Food and Civil Supplies office as the authorities take no action on her application for renewal of BPL ration card. “All my paperwork is complete. But each time the Babu just keeps telling me to come again after a few days. It has been more than three months,” she laments. Meenu, an economically deprived teenager, had to lose an entire academic year because the government failed to provide her the necessary certificates in time. Doon resident Nidhi has been waiting to receive her mother’s pension for over a year now despite several requests. Physically challenged Anil is unable to get social welfare benefit because his application for disability certificate lies pending in the department concerned. Many await approvals of their residential maps. These are only a few examples of what often frets a common citizen who has to wait, bribe, suffer and lose as officers in sundry departments fail to provide public services. “Sure enough, one of the biggest good-governance- gaps in India is the unsatisfactory delivery of public services. And it is this sorry situation that one questions why the Uttarakhand Government has not done enough to properly implement Uttarakhand Right to Service Act, 2011- the one law that can actually ensure that even the poorest people get Government services in a timely and transparent manner. Put simply, RTS guarantees delivery of public services in Uttarakhand within given time limit and makes failure to do so by a designated officer a penal offence. But few about it,” observed Supreme Court advocate Shipra Khazanchi. Three years after it came into effect, the State Government has failed in setting up the Uttarakhand Right to Service Commission for proper implementation of the Act. Government officials were unavailable for comment on this delay. As per the Act, ‘it shall be the duty of the commission to ensure proper implementation of this act and make suggestions to the State Government for ensuring better delivery of services’. For this purpose among other functions, the commission may take suo-moto notice of failure to deliver service, hold inspections of offices entrusted with the delivery of services and the offices of the appellate authorities, recommend departmental action against a erring officers and recommend changes in the process of delivery of services to make them more transparent and easier. Further, Section 11 of the Right to Service Act, 2011 directs that the services and given time limit shall be displayed locally and on website by secretary of the concerning Department for information of the public. However, departments continue to flout this provision. Speaking to The Pioneer, Revenue Assistant, Dehradun district, R Kashyap rued that even though all the 10 departments under the Act are to send monthly reports related to service applications to be sent to the Secretariat for monitoring, none of the departments abide by the given timeframe. “We don’t get the records even after repeated reminders and every month we have to write “unavailable” for these departments. There is a need for disciplinary action against this practice.” The 10 departments are Food and Civil Supplies; Revenue; Medical, Health and Family Welfare; Housing; Transport; Drinking Water, Social Welfare, Urban Development, School Education and Home. Under RTS, an eligible person shall make an application to the designated officer for obtaining any service under the provisions of this act. On receipt of such an application the designated officer is mandated to either provide the service or reject the application within the given time limit and in case of rejection of the application he shall record the reasons of rejection in writing and intimate the same to the applicant. Any eligible person whose application under this act is a rejected or who is not provided the service within the given time limit has recourse to two tiers of appeals. A penalty of upto `5,000 can be levied upon the designated officer or any other officer involved in providing the service. In its quick ground survey, The Pioneer found that majority respondents were totally unaware of the RTS. The extent of public ignorance towards RTS can be gauged from the fact that when this correspondent approached the Chief Minister’s office regarding this subject, even the information officers of the CM were caught unawares giving the reporter address of the Uttarakhand Information Commission when asked about the status of Uttarakhand Right to Service Commission. As emphasised by social activist Neerja, “Right to Service is as important a law as RTI. However, very few are aware of it and even fewer using it. There is a need for a campaign calling for the widespread use of the Right to Service Act as it can empower citizens. RTS can promote accountability and good governance.” dailypioneer/state-editions/dehradun/many-fret-as-state-fails-to-implement-rts-effectively.html
Posted on: Wed, 04 Jun 2014 12:41:06 +0000
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