Why?
- IN opted for representative democracy
- participation of citizen restricted to only voting
- india continued w/ colonial bureaucracy
- CB -> high secrecy, complete absence of accountability
- failed in development administration
- centralized planning, top down implementation failed
- no participation of citizen
- no accountability of administrators
- outlays couldn’t be transformed to outcomes
- dev administration -> high corruption
- to overcome weakness in dev administration, Citizen charter come into existence
- in parl democracy, bureaucracy is not directly accountable to ppl
- they are accountable to politicians and politician accountable to ppl thru electoral process
Evolution of CC
- UK, John Major (PM) 1995
- to ensure participation of citizen in governance
- fix accountability of bureaucracy
- highly successful in UK
- 1997, CM Conference (Delhi), to discuss corruption
- suggested implementation of CC to reduce Corruption
- fix bureaucracy accountability + improve quality of service delivery
Principles behind CC
- transform representative dem into participatory
- participation of stakeholders
- improve quality of service delivery
- fix accountability of bureaucracy
- ensure transparency in administration
- shift from bureaucracy centric administration to citizen centric governance
Steps
- once district admin receives info about finances to be spent on scheme, it should immediately inform stakeholders
- social audit committees at field level w/ beneficiaries + stakeholders
- district admin must formulate CC in consultation with SAC
- provide info about
- amt of money spent
- assets to be created
- services to be provided
- list of beneficiaries
- benefits to be provided + quality of service
- period during which beneficiaries can expect services
- once CC formulated, B takes responsibility for implementation
- once implemented, SAC expected to evaluate performance of B in terms of promises
- SAC submit report to govt
- govt takes action against B on basis of reports by SAC
Issues in implementation of CC
- lack of awareness
- 2nd ARC: CC are just BC
- made w/o any consultation w/ stakeholders
- become misnomers
- pious statements with noble intentions
- only voluntary, not mandatory
- performance of B has no impact on their career
- successful only w/ effective implementation of RTI
- colonial attitude of B
- in UK, B consider themselves public servant
- SAC didn’t participate due to lack of knowledge / awareness abt governance
- no protection to whistleblowers
- no efective grievance redresal mech if citizens fail to receive services promised
Recommendation to improve CC
- awareness
- media, CSO, govt dept must play imp role
- mandatory for all depts, ministries to formulate CC in consultation w/ stakeholders
- effective implementation of section 4 of RTI to ensure transparency in governance
- members of SAC be given training in admins’tration
- CC must mention service in quantifiable terms
- sensitivity training to B to remove colonial attitude into democratic values
- since B didn’t take CC seriously, make it mandatory, linked ot performance
- effective grievance redresal mech for citizens
- reccs of SAC be made mandatory
- make SAC legal status
- protection to whistleblowers
- 2nd ARC: implement Sevottam Model
Sevottam Model
- CC: must be formulated only in consultation w stakeholders
- must clearly specify services quantifiably
- capacity building mech
- Grievance Redressal mech