Citizen's Carter Flashcards
What is a Citizen’s Charter?
a response to the quest for solving the problems
which a citizen encounters, day in day out,
while dealing with organizations providing public services
one of the prerequisites for Good Governance
Who articulated the concept of Citizens’ Charter?
British PM John Major
1991
as a national programme with a simple aim -> to continuously improve the quality of public services for the people
launched in 1998 by Tony Blair (anothe British PM)
Origin of Citizens’ Charter in India?
1997
Conference of Chief Ministers
Theme : “Action Plan for Effective and Responsive Governance”
Major Decision : To Formulate Citizens’ Charter for sectors with large public interface
Guidelines for Citizens’ Charter ?
- Participatory formulation staff and users
- Simple + Useful
- Satisfaction of Citizens
- Statement of Service
- Procedure Cost Display
- Entitlement of user, service and standards
- Interaction and training for responsive climate
- Feedback an dperformance audit
Basic Framework of Citizens’ Charter ?
- Services offered by the organization
- Services Standard and remedies
- Actual Service Standards
- Principles and Norms under which services are offered
- Grievance Redress Mechanism Information
Principles of Citizens’ Charter?
Standards
Information + Openness
Choice and Consultation
Courtsey and Helpfulness
Putting Things Right
Value for Money
What are the Objectives of Citizens’ Charter?
Quality
Choice
Standards
Value
Accountability
Transparency
Obstacles in Citizens’ Charter
- still not been adopted by all departments / ministries
- lack precision on standards and commitments
- little interest shown by organizations
- not all stakeholders are consulted before formulation
- does not reflect actual realities
- poor planning and resouce commitment
- lack of review mechanism
- either too negligent or too tight and impractical
- inadequate publicity + lack of awareness
- not made in varnacular language
- behavior of staff = non attentive
Recommendation of IIPA w.r.t Citizens’ Charter ?
- need for citizens and staff to be consultation
- orientation of staff about salient features and goals of charter
- need for creation of database on consumer grievances and redress
- need for wider publicity of charter
- earmarking of specific budgets for awareness generation
- replication of best practicies in this field
Recommendations of 2nd ARC Report w.r.t Citizens’ Charter ?
- one size doen’t fit all
- should be prepared for each independent unit under the overall umbrella of organizarions’ charter
- wide consultation which include Civil Society
- firm commitments to be made
- redressal mechanism
- periodic review , evaluation and updation based on the review
- end-user feedabck mechanism
- holding officers accountable
- Charter Mark Scheme - honoring individuals for their excellence and meritorious performance
