The Punjab Government today finalized the most ambitious Governance Reforms initiative under which a Citizen Service Center has been planned to cover 5000 rural population and every urban ward in the state. The architect of Governance Reforms in Punjab, Deputy Chief Minister Mr. Sukhbir Singh Badal today gave the final touches to this ambitious plan with the clear instructions to ensure its implementation on ground level by March 31st, 2014. The Deputy Chief Minister said that the basic purpose of Governance Reforms was to facilitate the delivery of citizen services in the most transparent and hassle free manner and he was personally going to monitor the delivery of the services in real time manner.
Asking the Department go for a grand system integrator to integrate all services and all systems and finalise the backend operations, Mr. Badal said that different service providers and companies were running Suwidha Kendras, digitilisation of various departments, state e-governance initiative, national e-governance initiative, SAANJH Kendra, village suwidha Kendra, Gram Suwidha Kendra, Fard Kendra and there was lot of overlapping in their functioning besides lack of integration in their performance. He said that besides system integrator to integrate the services of all service provider, we must have an umbrella company that would be accountable fro delivery of services. Mr. Badal said that he was not satisfied with the official reports being submitted regarding delivery of services and we must engage an independent third party auditor, who would audit the system and submit the report on satisfaction level of the public.
Reviewing the implementation of Right to Service Act, Mr. Badal said that out of 89 lakh services requests, 33000 requests were not delivered but there were only 612 appeals to First Appellette Authority showing that there was a clear disconnect between the authorities and the public. Mr. Badal said that it was surprising that out of 568 appeals only 9 appeals were filed to second appellette authority and only 5 officials till date have been penalized. He said that he is not going to accept rosy pictures being projected by the districts and only third party audit of delivery of service could clear the mist. Directing to expedite work on State Data Center, Mr. Badal sought a fortnightly review of progress of Governance Reforms.
Prominent amongst those present in the meeting Dr. Parmod Kumar, Chairman Governance Reforms Commission, Mr. C. Roul, Secretary Governance Reforms and Mr. Ajay Mahajan, Special Principal Secretary to Deputy CM and representatives from various e-governance companies.