NEW DELHI: Translating Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s motto of ‘maximum governance, minimum government’ the Centre observed this year’s ‘Sushasan Saptah’ (good governance week) as a live demonstration of the administration’s role as an enabler and facilitator.
As many as 3,120 new services identified by District Collectors across the country were added for online delivery to the people in villages during the fiveday ‘Prashasan Gaon Ki Ore’ campaign that was inaugurated, on December 19 at Vigyan Bhjawan in New Delhi.
This is the second time in ‘Amrit Kaal’ period that the Centre has conducted a national campaign at tehsil-level to address public grievances and improve service delivery.
Self-reliant India
As Prime Minister Narendra Modi said in his message on the second Sushasan Saptah, observed from December 19- 25, “We are strongly marching ahead towards digital empowerment of citizens and digital transformation of institutions” The people, said PM Modi, have resolved to build a glorious and self-reliant India during Amrit Kaal of next 25 years.
“The Government’s role is to complement the people’s resolve by being an enabler in their efforts. Our role is to increase opportunities and remove obstacles from their path,” he said. The Prime Minister in his message said, guided by the principle of ‘Citizen-First’, our Government is striving tirelessly to make the ecosystem transparent and faster by simplifying procedures and processes at every level.
Citizen-centric steps
He said we have undertaken various citizen-centric initiatives including redressal of public grievances, online services, disposal of service delivery applications and good governance practices.
Our vision is to expand the outreach of service delivery mechanisms, making them more effective.
The Prime Minister said it has always been our endeavor to increase the impact of governance, but reduce the interference of the Government in every citizen’s life. The scrapping of thousands of unnecessary compliances, repealing of thousands of outdated laws and decriminalisation of many kinds of minor offences are major steps towards this end. PM Modi further said that technology has immense potential to bring the Government and the citizens closer.
Today, technology has become a powerful tool to empower citizens, as well as a medium to optimise transparency and accountability in day-to-day functioning. “Through various policy interventions, we are strongly marching ahead towards digital empowerment of citizens and digital transformation of institutions,” he said. He said it was particularly pleasing to note that this year too, the ‘Prashasan Gaon Ki Ore’ campaign continued to be a part of the Good Governance Week. On June 19, Union Minister Dr. Jitendra Singh was the Chief Guest at the inaugural ceremony of the Sushasan Saptah. He kick-started the ‘Prashasan Gaon Ki Ore’ 2022 campaign across the country as part of the week-long celebrations.
During the week, the Department of Administrative Reforms and Public Grievances organised the nation-wide campaign, which sought to focus on improving service delivery and redressal of public grievances across all the tehsils/ districts of the country. The progress of the campaign will be reported by the District Collectors on a dedicated portal. The minister also inaugurated an exhibition on Good Governance Practices and launched the dedicated campaign portal for ‘Prashasan Gaon Ki Aur’ 2022. A film on ‘Prashasan Gaon Ki Aur’ was screened on the occasion.
Grievance redressal
The campaign was conducted with focus on the issues directly touching the lives of citizens, like redressal of pending public grievances; redressal of public grievances in the state portals; number of services added for online service delivery; disposal of service delivery applications; collation of good governance practices and their dissemination; and sharing of one success story per district on resolution of public grievances As part of the Sushasan Saptah, a workshop on good governance practices was held in Vigyan Bhawan, with Cabinet Secretary as the Chief Guest. It included sessions on Special Campaign 2.0 and Increasing Efficiency in Decision-Making. During ‘Prashasan Gaon Ki Aur’ campaign last year, more than 2.89 crore applications for service delivery were disposed, over 6.5 lakh grievances were attended, 621 services were added in the citizen charters, 380 Citizen Charters were updated, 265 best governance practices and 236 success stories were uploaded on the portal.
