Enactment of Public Services Guarantee Act had become necessary because it was found that hundreds of thousands of applications from general public were not being responded quickly and efficiently. The PSGA promises to ensure timely disposal of applications. The Act is also aimed at keeping close watch on the performance of the departments and their subsidiaries so as to understand the status of cases pending with the administration.
If we go by the statistics provided by official records, we find that from August 2011 till early this year, a total of 35, 41,608 applications were received by 13 departments for providing various services to the applicants under PSGA. Out of this, a total of 26,63,076 applications were disposed of within the stipulated time frame while the number of applications pending disposal and disposed of beyond the stipulated time was 8,78,529.
These figures reveal horrendous delay in the disposal of applications received. If the rate of disposal as has been described above remains in place then it will take several decades to dispose off the applications. No one can imagine what injustice will be done to the applicants who have genuine grievances and just implementation of the rules and procedures would alleviate their grievances. The much worrisome aspect of this inefficiency and lethargy is that even the instructions of the Secretary of General Administration Department, who is the nodal authority for ensuring implementation of the PSGA, are not shown due respect. The Act stipulates that concerned authorities meaning Secretaries/Heads of the departments were to send in monthly progress reports on the number of applications received, number of these disposed off and the status of the pending applications etc. It is regrettable that the concerned departments have not sent in the reports. Additionally the district headquarters were directed to post day to day information on the websites so that higher authorities would be able to have updated record in front of them. This too has not been done. In the case of some districts not a single entry has been uploaded that would give information about the output of relevant services. This is a sad reflection on the state of affairs and one wonders whether going at this pace justice will ever be done to the people. It will be remembered that when emphasis began to be laid on good governance, the elements of good governance were to be identified and addressed. With the RTI Act in place, every citizen of the country has a right to know the current status of his or her case. We may even say that if the concerned Government functionaries regularly stick to the norms set forth by the PSGA, there would not be such accumulation of applications.
We do understand that the Act implies the provision of adequate strength of the expert staff and additional funding required for efficient implementation of the Act. The GAD has the responsibility of ensuring that the departments concerned are not starved for want of adequate staff or funds. Timely intervention by the GAD can help save the situation from becoming critical. It is also true that the Government, after making a review of the Act did think of bringing in desired amendments. For this purpose the assignment of suggesting revision of the Act was given to a Minister. However, it is not known whether the concerned Minister has suggested any review/amendments or not.
Some observers have been thinking of punitive measures against the defaulters. The administration generally does not think it should run things through punitive measures. What is important is to create a sense of responsibility and honesty among the Government functionaries. Of course the CSR had adequate provision of how to tackle dereliction of duty and the civil servants one and all are fully aware of it. In cases of grave neglect of duty, the law will automatically come into action and nobody will stop the axe from falling.
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