The Hindu Business Line : Citizen-hostile

IT TOOK nearly 30 years after Independence for the Central and State governments to wake up to the need of infusing accountability into the administrative culture.

Mechanisms to redress public grievances, simplify procedures and providing hassle-free access to public servants came into being under the overall direction and supervision of Departments of Personnel, Administrative Reforms and Public Grievances.

Citizens charters whereby the various Government offices and public sector undertakings pledged themselves to render different kinds of services specified in them within particular time limits were also published.

A contact officer was designated charged with the duty of attending to citizens' complaints and grievances. Acknowledgments to citizens' letters were directed to be sent immediately on receipt, and intimation of action taken was to go within a short period of one to three months.

The most impressive website of the Government of India is that of the Department of Administrative Reforms and Public Grievances.

The grandiloquent proclamation of its vision and mission leaves nothing to be desired. It is full of action plans, model codes, best practices, agenda for e-governance and what have you.

There is even an invitation to "e-mail us". Capping it all, the Prime Minister, Dr Manmohan Singh, himself has called upon the Secretaries at the Centre and the Chief Secretaries to reach out to the people, and be true to the Gandhian exhortation of "wiping every tear from every eye".

The actual experience of the citizen approaching officialdom belies all this drum beating. The patients `served' by the Central Government Health Scheme are being subjected to a very painful ordeal by the Union Ministry of Health because of the sudden introduction of complicated procedures for specialised treatment and manner of getting re-imbursement.

The Hindu had come out with a number of reports on the extreme distress caused, especially to the senior citizens. It was also brought to the notice of the Union Health Minister, Mr Anbumani. There has been no `redressal' and not even a reply to representations.

This is just one of thousands of examples of citizen-hostile attitude of Government departments despite all the charters and vision and mission. An all-India compilation will take several volumes.

B. S. Raghavan