Barnala leads in service delivery through Sewa Kendras, Amritsar lags

In a report on how efficiently government-to-citizen services are provided through Sewa Kendras in districts, Barnala has been found to have the lowest percentage pendency of cases.

The department of governance reforms generated the report from August 12, 2016, to July 7, 2017.

It treated any file that had not been cleared for more than 30 days as pending.

So, at the Sewa Kendras in Barnala, only 1.2% of requests for service delivery in areas like providing birth and death certificates, licences to chemists and issues of identity card to the handicapped etc. are pending for more than 30 days. Significantly, Barnala is the least populated district in the state.

In Amritsar, the lowest ranked district in the state, the comparable figure is at around 20%, meaning one of every 5th service request received at the centres remain pending for more than a month.

On average, the pendency in the state across all 388 sewa kendras in urban area and 1,759 in rural areas is around 10%. Over 23 lakh applications were submitted during the period, so around 2.25 lakh requests are pending for more than a month.

Muktsar was the second-best in the state with only 5% of files kept pending.

“As of now, there is no case pending with me or with the Right to Service Commission regarding service delivery issue in Barnala district,” said Barnala DC Ghanshyam Thori.

“Three months back we had 4,500 applications pending beyond timeline which was resulting in overall pendency of around 5.5%. We provided extra training to Sewa Kendra employees to minimise mistakes while entering data.”

“Many applications were pending because of some missing information in the application form itself. We launched a drive to call such applicants to rectify the error. We aim to bring down pendency to less than a percent in two weeks.”

He added that in case a citizen had a grievance, he could contact the Grievance Redress Authority, the sub-divisional magistrate.

In case, the grievance is still not addressed, the deputy commissioner — the appellate authority — for most services can be approached.

ON AVERAGE, THE PENDENCY IN THE STATE ACROSS ALL SEWA KENDRAS IS 10%. MORE THAN 23 LAKH APPLICATIONS WERE SUBMITTED FROM AUG 12, 2016, TO JULY 7 THIS YEAR. AROUND 2.25 LAKH REQUESTS ARE PENDING FOR MORE THAN A MONTH