Hakim Singh
Public Services Guarantee Act in Jammu and Kashmir owes its origin from the India’s Citizens Charter, 1997 and Madhya Pradesh’s Services Act, 2010 respectively. It first originated within the context of quality and timely services delivery and secondly, on to provide a fast track grievance redressal mechanism.
Implementing the Act was one way to try for setting up a transparent and effective services delivery mechanism. It advocates the processes and procedures for bringing accountability and responsibility to the Government officials. After receiving the service input from the citizens under its ambit, the officials have to face penalty for unreasonable delay in delivering the output.
Unlike charter, it possesses a unique characteristic of ‘guarantee’. But, this sunny picture is only ideal and gets blurred when we divert our sight from booklet to its implementation. We cannot find it a road to good governance in J&K when we visit public offices. The blurred face of JKPSGA is we the citizen have all, at the Government office level, been victim of same delay and harassment for services delivery as used to be before its enactment. We have been consciously kept away from knowing and exercising this right to guarantee of timely and corruption free public services.
From both urban as well as rural areas, PSGA has been found largely behind the curtains, entrenches lack of knowledge among masses, administrative ill will and defective systems of public services delivery and grievances redressal mechanism.
Since its origin in 2011, even I got introduced to this Act only when I joined research and chose it as my research area in 2016. And if I as a policy student don’t share my experience to remove your ignorance on it which affects even today almost every fellow citizen, then I am unequivocally a part of the grand administrative conspiracy.
Thus, my interaction with different stakeholders was inevitable and illustrates this truth that the very few of them have heard about this Act. Keeping the people unaware and uninformed about the guarantees, the J&K administration highlights its intention of not acting on the pro-people administrative initiatives. It has revealed that how to slowly kill the relevance of such valuable tools of the governance in Jammu and Kashmir. The lack of knowledge among people about such protections is to continue in perpetuating their harassment and unfairness in receiving the services.
At its theoretical level JKPSGA: is the advocacy of people’s right to get timely services delivered and grievances redressed. However, the guarantee of services is so deeply disliked by the administration and its officials that its effective implementation is seen always an overburden and anti to the current work culture. It is perceived as a threat to leisure and maximizing their selfish interest. Keeping the Act under the carpet is aimed to prevent regularity, timeliness, transparency and accountability in the public work. This is how the public service is not only being delayed but made rely on the whims and fancies of an official even after the introduction of guarantee Act. It should also astonish us that why the Act has reached to the public mind when administration claims for E-services, services at the door steps and above all increase in the notified services across the departments.
“The less service receivers know, the more an official will exploit them, the conversation on JKPSGA becomes therefore essential and basic step towards its proper utilization. Exposing fate of the Act is unmasking the various brokers also who currently influence the system. The hand of middleman in association with public officials for services is also to prevent the materialization of the Act. And the civil-society hardly moves on to talking about unearthing these various hidden nexuses and implements the Act to govern us in a democratic way. The middleman network has largely been oriented towards the privileged, urban, educated and influential citizens and does not serve the purpose of a common person”.
Public official’s attitude probably sounds familiar everywhere; at least they have shown to me. I too have felt, lived and experienced this dark side of service delivery especially during my last ten years as a citizen and five as a researcher in Jammu and Kashmir. There are no online open accessible six monthly progress reports that show the status of the Act.
Consciously or not, unlawfulness and hiding of PSGA from the public, the administration is not only favoring their comfort zones but preventing the common mass from securing good governance.
For example, various well-known trends in Jammu and Kashmir’s services delivery mechanism exists include the political influence, personal relations, caste and community feeling, money and region. These factors always influence the nature and pace of services. The Act and its norms to shift the fate of services or grievances redressal mechanism are limited to only papers. It cannot even get expressed in occasional Darbars organized by political representatives or public officials. The Darbars get organized only outside the ambit of JKPSGA.
A significant setup to implement the Act for public welfare in the state now called as UT is missing. The field view shows no change in the attitude and mindset of officials and stakeholders regarding the services. To both, the aforesaid conventional methods still are guiding principles. The middle man acts a bridge between giver and receiver of the service. Among service receivers, the working class cannot escape from their routine work and therefore, are ready to pay for services to the middle man. They are not in favour of messing with the departments and its officials so that the services are not further delayed, confirms their lack of consciousness and trust in the administrative machinery. As I grow in my understanding of the governance of Jammu and Kashmir, under the PSGA, the right of filing a case against any officer and appeal before an appellate authority for unreasonable delay in services has been mere a dream.
My writing thus is meant as both an accusation and a call to action; because our service delivery has not been yet up to the mark that people may feel empowered and satisfied with it. Hiding the Act from citizens has proven against all the initiatives of bringing governance here a goal of new national socio-economic and political discourse. Now it’s time about dismantling the conventional administrative networks that always favored the deficiency, defect and loss of money to give quality services.
Let us think critically about the public services delivery systems we rely on as a Union Territory, and analyze the full spectrum of people’s right to services. Let us also think about the services and grievances mechanisms and compare it with other states and countries to realize the full strength of this law and its various features for improving the system in general.
On many occasions, our personal fights against injustice often end with associating ourselves slowly with the power rather standing together firmly to change our common good. System that generates oppression, corruption, unfairness, timelessness may serve certain temporary selfish motives, kills administrative accountability, efficiency and fairness in general. When we, as an individual allow corrupt and defective systems function unquestionably, we are each partially responsible for harassing those affected. It is up to us, how we bring each other closer to end with the deficient and broken structures.
Let us convince ourselves that our personal interests are interlinked and collective voice is needed for effective implementation of PSGA beyond the papers. Only this can be an assurance to transparent, free, timely and efficient public services to everyone irrespective one’s identity and agency. It’s about eliminating middle man’s role and other unnecessary evils from the governance cycle.
(The author is a Research Scholar, Department of Public Policy and Public Administration, Central University of Jammu)
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