Citizens’ charter

What is a Citizens’ charter?

Citizen’s Charter is a document which represents a systematic effort to focus on the commitment of the Organisation towards its Citizens in respects of Standard of Services, Information, Choice and Consultation, Non-discrimination and Accessibility, Grievance Redress, Courtesy and Value for Money. This also includes expectations of the Organisation from the Citizen for fulfilling the commitment of the Organisation.

Origin and Principles

It has been recognised the world over that good governance is essential for sustainable development, both economic and social. The three essential aspects emphasised in good governance are transparency, accountability and responsiveness of the administration. The “Citizen’s Charters initiative” 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.

The concept of Citizen’s Charter enshrines the trust between the service provider and its users. Theconcept was first articulated and implemented in the United Kingdom by the Conservative Government of John Major in 1991 as a national programme with a simple aim: to continuously improve the quality of public services for the people of the country so that these services respond to the needs and wishes of the users.

Indian Scenario

Over the years, in India, significant progress has been made in the field of economic development. Citizens have become more articulate and expect the administration not merely to respond to their demands but also to anticipate them.

It was in this climate that a consensus began to evolve, since 1996, in the Government on effective and responsive administration. At a Conference of Chief Ministers of various States and Union Territories held on 24 May, 1997 in New Delhi, presided over by the Prime Minister of India, an “Action Plan for Effective and Responsive Government” at the Centre and State levels was adopted.

One of the major decisions at that Conference was that the Central and State Governments would formulate Citizen’s Charters, starting with those sectors that have a large public interface (e.g., Railways, Telecom, Posts, Public Distribution Systems and the like).

These Charters were to include first, standards of service as well as the time limits that the public can reasonably expect for service delivery, avenues of grievance redressal and a provision for independent scrutiny through the involvement of citizen and consumer groups.

The Department of Administrative Reforms and Public Grievances in Government of India (DARPG) initiated the task of coordinating, formulating and operationalising Citizen’s Charters.

The guidelines for formulating the Charters as well as a list of do’s and don’ts were communicated to various government departments/organisations to enable them to bring out focused and effective charters.

For the formulation of the Charters, the government agencies at the Centre and State levels were advised to constitute a task force with representation from users, senior management and the cutting edge staff.

Primarily an adaptation of the UK model, the Indian Citizen’s Charter has an additional component of ‘expectations from the clients’ or in other words ‘obligations of the users’.

What are the components of a Citizen’s Charter?

A good Citizen’s Charter should have the following components :-

• Vision and Mission Statement of the Organisation
• Details of Business transacted by the Organisation
• Details of ‘Citizens’ or ‘Clients’
• Statement of services including standards, quality, time frame etc. provided to each Citizen/ Client group separately and how/ where to get the services
• Details of Grievance Redress Mechanism and how to access it
• Expectations from the ‘Citizens’ or ‘Clients’
• Additional commitments such as compensation in the event of failure of service delivery.

Advantages of Citizen charter

• Citizens can get to know the services provided by the respective organisations

• Citizens can avail services in a time bound manner.
• Citizens will not have to depend on the mercy of the bureaucracy.
• Citizens will not have to face long delays due to red tape
• Citizens can seek compensation for undue delay in delivery of service.
• Basic thrust of Citizens Charter is to make public services citizen centric by ensuring that these services are demand driven rather than supply driven.
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Problems with Citizens’ charters in India

2nd Administrative Reforms Commission (ARC) found following problems with Citizens’ charters in India:

• Measurable standards of delivery are rarely spelt out in the charter.
• Standards are poorly defined, it becomes tough to assess whether the desired level of service has been achieved or not.
• Most charters are verbose. (containing too many words).
• Promises contained in the Charter were vague and meaningless.
• If the service is not delivered then very hard for citizen to get compensatation.
• Citizen Charters are not revised with time.
• The needs of senior citizens and disabled are not considered while drafting charters.
• Resistance to change.
• Lack of Public Awareness.
• End Users (public) & NGOs are not consulted when the charters are drafted.

Recommendations of 2nd ARC:

• The Charters should clearly spell out the remedy / penalty / compensation in case there is a default in meeting the standards spelt out in the Charter.
• Better give a few promises that can be kept, rather than a long list of lofty but impractical aspirations
• Before the organization makes charter, it should restructure its internal system and processes.
• One size does not fit all. Citizens’ Charter should be close to ground reality and local conditions.
• Consult all the stakeholders before finalizing the charter (including civil society).
• Firm Commitments should be made. There must be redressal mechanism should be citizen friendly.
• Organization should evaluate the Citizens’ charters periodically.
• Hold officers accountable for results.

Sevottam Model

Sevottam Model is a model proposed by 2nd ARC (Administrative Reforms Commission) for public Service Delivery. The word, Sevottam, is a combination of two Hindi words: ‘Seva’ (service) and ‘Uttam’ (excellence).

Sevottam Model is now regarded as a standard model for providing services in citizen centric governance.

The model is developed by rectifying the drawbacks in the earlier mechanisms of public service delivery like Citizen Charters (CC), and is gradually adopted by various departments under Central and State government.

Sevottam model, a quality management framework applicable to public service delivery organisations, in all its departments. Service Delivery Excellence Model provides a framework for organisations to assess and improve the quality of service delivery to citizens.

Seven Steps in Sevottam Model

The model prescribes seven steps:

1. Define services and identify clients.
2. Set standards and norms for each service.
3. Develop capability to meet the set standards.
4. Perform to achieve the standards.
5. Monitor performance against the set standards.
6. Evaluate impact through an independent mechanism.
7. Continuous improvement based on monitoring and evaluation.

Three Modules in Sevottam Framework

The Sevottam framework has basically three modules. They are:

Citizen Charter.

• The first component of the model requires effective charter implementation thereby opening up a channel for receiving citizens’ inputs into the way in which organizations determine service delivery requirements. Citizens’ Charters publicly declare the information on citizens’ entitlements; making citizens better informed and hence empowering them to demand better services.

Public Grievance Mechanism.

• The second component of the model, ‘Public Grievance Redress’ requires a good grievance redress system operating in a manner that leaves the citizen more satisfied with how the organization responds to complaints/grievances, irrespective of the final decision

Service Delivery Capability.

• The third component ‘Excellence in Service Delivery’, postulates that an organization can have an excellent performance in service delivery only if it is managing the key ingredients for good service delivery well, and building its own capacity to continuously improve delivery

Sevottam model provides a standard for providing public service delivery in a citizen centric administration. Those organisations adopting Sevottam model for service delivery needs to comply the 7 steps and ensure the formulation of 3 modules.