हिंदी
Chandigarh, October 24 – To realise the parents-patriae role of the welfare state towards its residents, Haryana, like many other states of India, legislated the Haryana Right to Service Act in the year 2014. Since 2015, the state has full-fledged Right to Service Commission as a watchdog institution to guard the Public’s Right to get services in a timebound manner.
Giving information in this regard Chief Commissioner, Haryana Right to Service Commission, Sh. TC Gupta said that under the Act, an eligible person can apply before a Designated Officer to seek notified services of various Departments of the Government within notified timelines. If such officers fail to deliver the service timely or wrongfully reject the application, the aggrieved eligible person can seek redressal of his grievance before the First Grievance Redressal Authority and Second Grievance Redressal Authority. If a person still struggles to get the said service, he or she can approach the Haryana Right to Service Commission. But, it is not unusual to find significant gaps between the goals set by the promising Legislations and the actual delivery by the Bureaucracy.
He said that in order to bridge this gap, the Government resorted to digitisation and Tech-driven innovation. Consequently, this system of filing of appeals before the next appellate authority which existed in manual form, hitherto!, was overhauled and taken to an Autopilot Mode.
Sh. Gupta further said that the year 2021 has ushered in a new dawn of hope for people as the State Government has catapulted this application disposal / grievance redressal structure into automated mode – by suitably amending the legislation to presume consent of the applicant in case a notified service is not delivered within notified timelines while filling the form for any service. This appeal shall now be filed before the First or Second Grievance Redressal Authority by the Auto Appeal System – AAS which is a beautiful software – conceived by the Commission and implemented by the National Informatics Centre under the aegis of IT Department, Govt of Haryana – dedicated to people of Haryana by the Chief Minister, Sh. Manohar Lal.
He added that all these interventions of state government assume significance as the Auto Appeal System introduces the implementation of inclusive governance across the state where the end user is taken care of by the system and the people manning the positions in the system are held accountable for their commissions/omissions, especially in post COVID scenario where many a delays have occurred on account of restricted movement.
Sh. Gupta said that the most crucial (and innovative) aspect of this system is the unique feature where State is raising an appeal for a person in civil matters. Hitherto the concept of state filing appeal for citizens has been wedded to criminal litigation involving sky rocketing expense to one’s dignity. But the Auto Appeal System raises an auto concern ticket before the next authority, on behalf of the applicant, which will drastically cut down the civil litigation filed against the state by citizens for denial of services bringing down the overall tortious as well as civil liability of the state. It shall also reduce a lot many frivolous and avoidable litigation that happens on account of evasive/faulty decision making by those who are mandated to man the service delivery regimes. Also, the multiple visits to Government offices for seeking services may soon become a thing of the past!
Sh. Gupta said that the Haryana Right to service Commission has taken upon itself the task to simplify the processes involved in delivery of each and every service, to identify more and more services to be provided to people in online mode and to have multiple indicators in field offices as well as websites of various departments to display the list of notified Services, timelines, names and contact details of designated officers, First and Second Grievance Redressal Authorities. The Commission also seeks to ensure that the satisfaction level of the targeted beneficiary / applicant is captured by an IVRS based call – reported happiness ratings system where the user can indicate the score he or she intends to assign to the user (service providing department?). This can actually lead to a happier citizenry as the tax payer begins to feel included in the loop of governance, begins to feel better heard when the system asks for his or her ratings against a particular service. Consequently, the general level of satisfaction with ease of living increases as the state will take care of pending works of people in an automated mode!
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The Government of Haryana has started where it matters the most! The best place to begin designing happiness-centric experiences is where the Bureaucracy-Citizenry interface takes place. A citizen-centric attitude of the system combined with the elimination of evils of Red-Tapism and Bureaucratic procrastination/apathy will deliver the biggest rewards in the shortest amount of time. Haryana is riding high on the road to happiness with these anticipated happiness ratings and state sponsored auto appeals, as a happy citizenry necessarily makes a crime free society.
We may soon re christen the Commission as Ministry of Happiness – a first in India, he added.
