State govt widens ambit of Right to Service Act With 80 more additions, number of services under the law rises to 149 Sarbjit Dhaliwal Tribune News Service Chandigarh, September 6 The Punjab Government’s Department of Governance Reforms has included 80 more services under the Right to Service Act, thus raising their total number to 149. Among the latest additions are providing a school leaving certificate, copy of complete medico legal report and duplicate ration card within a week of an application, disability certificate in four days, correction of entry in birth and death certificate in 15 days, supply of essential medicines ( as notified by the department) on the same day; X-ray, pathology tests on the same day and emergency medical response (ambulance 108) in 20 minutes in urban areas and 30 minutes in rural areas and acknowledgement of a complaint by the police on the same day. Several new departments, including Housing and Urban Development, Health, Agriculture, Home, Industries, Local Government, Power, Social Security, Town and Country Planning, Transport and Revenue, have been covered under the Act. Iqbal Singh Sidhu, Commissioner, Right to Service Commission, said Chief Commissioner SC Aggarwal had included the new services after gathering feedback from people, officials of the government departments and all other stakeholders in the administrative network. Sources said there was a proposal to integrate 131 suvidha centres, 164 sanjh kendras and 155 fard kendras to provide a better network of services to people. With the integrating of these three separate entities, people would get an opportunity to submit their applications in any of these centres to avail services under the Act. So far, as many as 1.24 crore applicants have applied for various services at different suvida kendras. Of these, only 2.38 lakh applications are pending. “The delivery is in the range of 98 per cent, which is quite satisfactory,” said Sidhu. The commission has also been acting tough on officials not sticking to the mentioned deadline while providing services. Seventeen officials have already been fined. A Naib Tehsildar in Ludhiana was fined Rs 5,000 for not entertaining the application for sanctioning a mutation. Also, there are certain departments that are not working to the satisfaction of the commission. For instance, the delivery of certain services in the Local Bodies Department has been in the range of 70 per cent and in Home Department, it has been in the range of 70 to 80 per cent. The commission has taken up the issue with the authorities concerned to improve the delivery system in these departments.
Posted on: Sat, 07 Sep 2013 06:52:52 +0000