The Hindu Business Line : Kerala frames service delivery policy

The core principle of the service delivery policy is people-centeredness, which calls for recognition of a new relationship between providers and recipients of public services.

Thiruvananthapuram , Sept. 26

THE State Government has framed a service delivery policy as part of its Modernising Government Programme (MGP).

The broad objective of the policy is to develop and put in place service standards that would enable the citizens, policy-makers and service providers to track service performance and take corrective action wherever necessary.

The policy is also aimed at evolving a systematic approach to ensure that adequate level of public services of prescribed quality are provided by the various departments, implementing agencies and the local self-governments in the State.

According to a Government Order, the policy will be implemented in 22 institutions coming under eight departments in the first phase. The departments are: General Administration, Revenue, Education, Registration, Local Self-government, Food and Civil Supplies, Police and Social Welfare.

The implementation of the policy will be self-sustaining in nature as it will be made a regular part of the annual and five-year planning process of the State Government and the local governments. At the same time, it will have sufficient flexibility to encourage innovations and to allow for improvements and refinements over time.

The core principle of the service delivery policy is people-centeredness, which calls for recognition of a new relationship between providers and recipients of public services. This will require listening to the people, modifying services according to the needs, seeking feed-back and providing improvement and involving people in monitoring.

The focus will be on the poor and other disadvantaged groups who will be given the most favoured treatment not only through providing easy access but also through deliberate outreach. Besides, clear standards of service will be laid down to ensure that every citizen gets a guaranteed minimum level of service.

The whole process will be transparent. The citizens will have the right to know the standards expected to be achieved, the cost of service, the identity of service providers, outputs and the outcomes. The service providers will be accountable not only to the Government but to the citizens as well.

The policy envisages continuous improvement of methods, processes and standards. This will be achieved through a process of modernisation based on adoption of e-governance tools, emphasis on simplification of rules, reducing redundant multiple levels in decision-making and greater delegation of authority to levels that actually deliver the public services.

The policy enjoins upon the local governments and the departments to prepare service delivery implementation strategies incorporating details such as the level of services stipulated currently and the actual level of services provided, standards of service delivery to be set, resources for achieving the targeted improvement and the methods suggested for it. The strategy will also spell out the constraints and risks anticipated and suggestions for overcoming them.

A bottom-up planning process will be followed for improving service delivery on the basis of the strategy published for each department. The lowest unit of the department will constitute a service improvement task force. For institutions transferred to the local governments, the latter will constitute the task force as per the general guidelines. The role of the task force is to approve the service delivery plans by taking into account various parameters.

The performance of public services will be reviewed by the agency which has drawn up the implementation strategy, the agency/institution that provides the services and a representative sample of the beneficiaries of the services. This apart, an audit system for service delivery will be put in place and this could be either internal or external, as well as fiscal and social.

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