The Hindu Business Line : <I>Measuring governance</I>

Mere descriptive expressions of services provided by any agency, government or private, hardly convey the precise measure of the efficiency, effectiveness or promptness associated with the functioning of that agency.

The adjectives commonly used such as excellent, very good, good, satisfactory and poor, do not reflect in an exact sense the extent of fulfilment of satisfaction. In the commercial sector, however, an attempt has been made to arrive at a quantitative index of customer satisfaction by developing a matrix of a number of relevant parameters.

Some years ago, government departments and public sector undertakings were required to prepare Citizens' Charters specifying the nature of the services to which people were entitled and the time limits for acting on people's requests and complaints. These have largely remained on paper, with neither the officials nor the citizens taking them seriously.

The Public Affairs Centre, Bangalore, hit upon the innovative idea of periodically bringing out and distributing Citizens' Report Cards based on its findings of surveys of public opinion on the functioning of the various government departments and municipal bodies. Its latest report card on the qualitative and quantitative dimensions of public service delivery by panchayati raj institutions is an eye-opener. (See pacindia@vsnl.com.)

The Catalyst Trust of Tamil Nadu also undertook a similar survey in select districts in respect of primary education, primary health care and public distribution.

These have helped in jolting the laggards in service delivery into stepping up their performance. All civil society set-ups should pitch in to ensure that such efforts are carried on in a sustained, not sporadic, manner and cover the entire country.

B. S. RAGHAVAN