Punjab Cabinet okays Right to Service

 by sportswire4u.blogspot.com (Balbir)

CHANDIGARH, JUNE 7
The Punjab Cabinet today approved the Right to Service Ordinance 2011 to ensure the delivery of citizen centric services like driving license, arms license, revenue record (fard) and copy of FIR etc. to the people with in the stipulated time limit.
A decision to this effect was taken here at a meeting of the Cabinet chaired by Punjab Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal this morning.
Disclosing this here today a spokesperson of the Punjab Government said that in a landmark decision this Ordinance was aimed at empowering the citizens with the right to get the services from the government within a deadline on one hand and to ensure 100% accountability of the officers of implementing agencies on the other.  It may be recalled that the GoI is still mulling a proposal in this regard with tremendous pressure from the civil society.  A provision of penalty clause has been introduced in the Ordinance to charge a
lumpsum penalty of minimum Rs.500 up to maximum of Rs. 5000 from the authorized designated officers who failed to provide the services to the persons in a time bound manner without any sufficient and reasonable cause.
In case the designated officer has caused undue delay in providing the services, then he would be liable to pay a penalty at a rate of Rs.250 per day for such delay and it would not be more than Rs.5000.

Thus Punjab today made a history by becoming first state in the country to enact a comprehensive Right to Service Act, empowering the citizen of the state to get 67 citizen services in a stipulated time, as a matter of right.

              Announcing this here today Punjab Deputy Chief Minister Mr. Sukhbir Singh Badal said that with a single stroke, citizen has emerged as king. He said that it was a major stride for the state as far as implementation of Administrative Reforms was concerned in the state.  He congratulated the Civil Officers for working collectively day and night to give practical shape to this act and ensure its enactment with stipulated time. He said that act would ensure timely delivery of services to the citizen otherwise person responsible for delay could face the penalty for Rs. 500  and not more than Rs. 5000.

              With the RTI Act, citizens were empowered to find out where their file was struck. The law made it mandatory for civil servants and public authorities to give information promptly on the common man's query. But this knowledge did not help much because the aggrieved person could only either write to higher authorities or move court seeking redressal of his grievance. Since the courts are already deluged with cases, there is little chance of him getting early relief in matters pertaining to digging a tube well in a village or constructing a school. The Right to Service Act is designed to fill this important gap and make life easier for the common man.

 On the onset of the meeting, the Council of Ministers in a condolence resolution expressed profound grief and sorrow over the sad demise of  Mrs. Surinder Kaur Badal the wife of Punjab Chief Minister Mr. Parkash Singh Badal and the mother of Deputy Chief Minister Mr. Sukhbir Singh Badal.  They recalled her outstanding services in the political, social and religious spheres and prayed to the Almighty to grant peace to the departed soul.   A two-minute silence was also observed in the memory of Mrs. Badal.