CITIZEN CHARTER

Citizens Charters is a response to the quest for solving the problems which
a citizen encounters, day in and day out, while dealing with organisations
providing public services. Citizen charter is one of the prerequisite for the
Good Governance.
Over the years India has made significant progress in the field of economic
development. This along with increase in literacy rate has made Indian citizens
aware of their rights.
The illustration below represents the core areas of focus of Citizen’s Charter in
India

Citizens’ Charter-Basic Framework :

Citizens’ Charter contains detailed and elaborate statements which include:

Services which an organisation might offer

Services standards and remedies
Actual services standards
Principles and norms under which services are offered
Details of possible areas of grievances and grievance redressal mechanisms
Set up machinery for system audit, performance, monitoring and evaluation
Make provision for independent scrutiny of the agency’s performance.
Objectives:
 Quality: Citizens’ charter strives to improve the quality of services offered by
the departments and required by the public. Example – Information requested
through RTI is provided in digital format in well readable format.
Choice: Government should offer various choices to people, so that people
can avail services according to their priorities and choices. Example: People
are given choices to get the LPG connection through cylinder or piped
connection.
Standards: Citizens’ charter specifies the standards for various services which
makes people aware of the services to be offered by the government.
Example: Water quality standards offered by various private agencies and
public agency are published, which allows people to select service standards
according to their needs.
Value: Services are offered by government from tax payers money.
Government strives to strike the balance between spend the amount
judiciously and improve the satisfaction of people. Example: Information
provided through RTI is given in digital format, this saves the tax payers money
as less money is spent on papers. This also improves satisfaction of people as
the information is available on timely manner.
Accountability: Citizens’ Charter enforces the accountability of the
department as citizens are aware of the service standards and actual
performance the services.
Transparency: Citizens’ Charter follows various rules, procedures and schemes
to make avail the services to the people. Any deviation from these gives the
opportunity to people to seek the grievance redressal from the depart
concerned. Example: Jan Soochana Portal of Rajasthan government.
 Obstacles in Citizens’ Charters:

A study sponsored by the Department of Administrative Reforms and Public

Grievances on evaluation of the Citizens’ Charters was carried out by the Indian
Institute of Public Administration in 2008. The observations/findings of this study are:

Citizens’ charters have still not been adopted by all Ministries/Departments.

There was lack of precision on standards and commitments in several cases.
There is often little interest shown by the organisations in adhering to their
charter.
On the communications front, the charter programme has been throttled on
account of poorplanning and resource commitment for publicity.
In some cases, the charters have become a one-time exercise, frozen in time.
 There was general lack of accountability and review mechanisms.
The charters were devoid of participative mechanisms for effective
performance.
The standards or time norms of services mentioned the citizens’ charter were
either too negligent or too tight and impractical and created impractical
impressions on clients.
Lack of awareness and knowledge and inadequate publicity, hence loss of
trust among service seekers.
The general perception of the organisation which formulated the the citizens’
charter was that the exercise was to be performed because there was a
direction from the top. The consultation process was minimal or largely absent.
Hierarchy gap between the Officers and the Operative Staff.
Staff is not prepared to shoulder the responsibility due to lack of
motivation and accountability.
Different mind-sets of officers and the Staff- Insensitiveness on the part of
the Supervisors and the Staff because they are yet to be sensitised. 50% of the
users have confirmed that the behaviour of the staff is non-attentive.
Recommendations of Indian Institute of Public Administration (IIPA):
Need for citizens and staffto be consulted at every stage of formulation
Orientation of staffabout the salient features and goals/ objectives of the
Charter
Need for creation of database on consumer grievances and redress.
Need for wider publicity of the Charter
Earmarking of specific budgets for awareness generation
Replication of best practices in this fi
 
Recommendations of Second ARC Report:

One size does not fit all.

Citizens’ Charter should be prepared for each independent unit under the
overall umbrella of theorganisations’ charter.
Wide consultation which include Civil Society in the process.
Firm commitments to be made, Redressal mechanism in case of default.
Periodic evaluation of Citizens’ Charters.
Benchmark using end-user feedback, Hold officers accountable for results.
 Charter Mark Scheme and recognition and honouring of individuals for their
excellence and meritorious performance, introduction of group incentives
scheme and monetary incentives will help achievement of goals of Citizens’
Charter.
 

Sevottam Model
Sevottam is a generic framework for achieving excellence in public service
delivery and was proposed by the 2nd Administrative Reforms Commission
(ARC). It has been developed with the overarching objective of improving the
quality of public service delivery in the country.

The model was introduced by overcoming the drawbacks with the Citizen
Charters (CC) and provides a framework to assess and improve the quality of
service delivery to citizens. 

Three Components of Sevottam Model

(Image: darpg.gov.in)

First Component – Citizens’ Charters

Opening a channel for citizens’ input to determine service delivery
requirements
Declaring the information on citizens’ entitlements; ensuring they are
better informed and empowered
  Second Component – Public Grievance System
A well operating grievance redress system for satisfactory experience with
complaints’ response from the organisation
Third Component – Excellence in Service Delivery 
Managing the key ingredients for good service delivery
Building on the existing capacity for better performance in the future

ARC Seven Step Model for Citizen Centricity 

A seven step ARC model was also introduced in the Sevottam model. These simplify
the approach outlined by the model, making it convenient for all organisations and
their units to adopt. The commission also recommends this 7 Step ARC model to be
mandatorily followed by all public sector organisations under the Central and State
governments. 

Given below are the steps prescribed by the Model:

1. Define all services which you provide and identify your clients
2. Set standards and norms for each service
3. Develop the capability to meet the set standards
4. Perform to achieve the standards
5. Monitor performance against the set standards.
6. Evaluate the impact through an independent mechanism
7. Continuous improvement based on monitoring and evaluation of results
The 12th Report of 2nd Administrative Reforms Commission (ARC) extensively dealt
with Citizen Centric Administration.

Benefits of Sevottam Model

The word “Sevottam” is formed by combining two Hindi words: Seva (Service) and
Uttam (Excellent). It was conceived by the Department of Administrative
Reforms & Public Grievances(DARPG), Ministry of Personnel, Public Grievances and
Pensions in 2006.

There are four broad ways in which the model can be used:

As a self-assessment tool by organizations already motivated to improve

service delivery
As a requirement standard
As a benchmark assessment process to be established
 As a rating model to recognize and reward organizations that are doing
commendable work in service delivery

Drawbacks of the Citizens’ Charter

The Sevottam Model was introduced to rectify the drawbacks of the Citizens’
Charter. The same has been given below:

There was no involvement of citizens

Employees were not trained for improvement of tasks assigned
The feedback taken from the grievances was not taken into consideration
Drawbacks in the Public Grievance Redress Mechanism
Lack of proper planning and then formulating its implementation
Inadequate infrastructure
Aspirants looking for details about the Citizen’s Chartercan visit the linked article
and compare the two models based on their pros and cons. This may even build a
stronger perspective for the UPSC mains answer writing section. 

Implementation and Dependencies of Sevottam Model

For the Sevottam model to be implemented on a large scale, appropriate
institutional arrangements must be in place. If the model is critically
implemented, it will help improve the service delivery and not just remain an
academic scoring exercise. 

The critical success factors for the Sevottam model have been discussed below:
 For this model to be successful, commitment and enthusiasm on the part of
organizations and implementing agencies play a very vital role
 The success of this exercise will also depend on the involvement of
stakeholders
A shift from ‘administration management’ to ‘performance
management’shall be required for the government and other concerned
officials
The model has been set up for assessing the quality of service delivery by Public
Service Organizations in India but its outcomes will completely depend upon the
commitment from the highest administrative levels to drive this exercise.

If the Sevottam model is implemented it shall meet the basic standards of healthy
competition for bringing excellence in service delivery in the country.