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"Private sector will benchmark government work"
The Times of India, Mahendra, July 21, 2005
New Delhi: Yet another effort at benchmarking the performance of the Union government’s ministries and departments is on the cards. The difference this time is that the private sector is being consulted and NGOs are being involved.
A government notification being issued next week will empower the department of administrative reforms to constitute of administrative reforms to constitute teams that will visit each ministry and department to assesses its performance vis a vis the public; in short, how far is the functioning “citizen-centric.”
The exercise, to be launched by October-November, will be all-encompassing, covering the government’s service sector like policing, health and education and infrastructure sector like water and power that affect a citizen’s day-to-day life. What is more, it will assess how far a promise made is implemented. A central plan to begin with, it would be extended to the states later. A good performance will mean awards and perhaps, rewards, officials say. But what about below par performance? Will that mean penalties?
The government is perplexed and undecided after a majority of the 40-odd NGOs invited to say how service delivery of the government could be improved, demanded that the scheme must include both awards and penalties.
How precisely will an erring government department be penalized? Reducing fund allocations or the staff could only mean further deterioration in
performance. The only recourse, officials say is to issue a warning and a time frame within which the department must improve performance. Since the ‘Citizens Charter” concept was introduced in 1996, then Union government has issued 108 Citizens’ Charters and various states another 625, meant to tell the citizens what they should expect from the government.
“Government alone cannot solve all the problems, nor is it desirable to leave the people out of the governance process,” said Suresh Pachauri, the minister incharge.
The concept became a World Bank project and Tata Consultancy Service(TCS) has since been involved in faming models on service delivery excellence and what the government calls “capacity building for good governance.”
The TCS model is applicable to Indian context, along with what is the international best practice on performance evaluation.
It also provides guidelines for grievance process and redressal and the extend of satisfaction or redressal.
Explaining the rationale behind the impending exercise, secretary, ministry of personnel A.N. Tiwari said: “Government will have to ensure that there is a demand for services that are given by them.” In creating awareness of this, he said, the NGOs’ role was crucial
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