A two-day workshop on Designing & Implementing Sevottam Complaint Citizen’s Charter and Grievance Redressal Mechanism began here today. Shri Prithviraj Chavan, Minister of State for Personnel, Public Grievances & Pensions inaugurated the workshop.

In his remarks, MoS (Personnel, Public Grievances & Pensions), Shri Prithviraj Chavan said that the Govt.-citizen interface has to be qualitatively moulded to meet people’s expectations. It is the quality of this interface that reposes people’s trust in the government. He said that UPA govt. has adopted a 3-pronged approach to be truly responsive to people’s aspirations i.e.

a)                  re-orienting the economic policies so as to ensure that benefits of govt. plans reach right up to the grass-root level;

b)                  improving physical infrastructure and

c)                  bringing improvements in governance.

Shri Chavan said that special focus of ARC has been directed towards making administration citizen-centric and citizen friendly. The seminars arranged by DAR&PG would highlight linkages between Results-Framework Document (RFD) and Sevottam so as to facilitate better service delivery mechanism. The Minister felt that basic problems facing us can be overcome if we put proper systems in place and Sevottam complaint citizen’s charter can go a long way in achieving this objective.

 Shri R.C. Mishra, Secretary, DAR&PG, gave an overview of the Sevottam model. He said that the new public service paradigm seeks to enhance stakeholder satisfaction rather than compliance with internal procedural requirements. He said that the role of standards in public services has become significant. The Department of Administrative Reforms and Public Grievances (DAR&PG) has been making efforts to make Citizen’s Charters more effective by stipulating that service standards should be committed in the Charters, and the remedy available in case these standards are not met should also be prescribed.

He said that the Department had undertaken a project to develop a mechanism for laying down generic standards for service delivery and facilitate setting of standards by government departments across a wide range of domains and services. Three broad areas were identified which directly impinge on the performance of any service provider in this regard were identified as:

-     Implementation of Citizen’s Charters and a mechanism for evaluating     the performance of the service provider in this regard

-     The public grievance redress mechanism of the service provider and the quality of the processes incorporated therein

-    Examining service delivery from the service recipients’ perspective and evaluating the performance of the department in improving its own capability to deliver

Shri Mishra said that Sevottam framework focuses on improved service delivery through setting of standards and monitoring the performance of service delivery as against RFD standards.

Organized by the Department of Administrative Reforms & Public Grievances in collaboration with Performance Management Division of Cabinet Secretariat and FICCI Quality Forum as Consulting Partner, it would be first of the four workshops for 62 Ministries/Departments of Government of India to facilitate them in achieving the Sevottam compliance success indicators under Result Frame Document (RFD). Representatives from 20 departments are attending this workshop. Sevottam framework was initiated as pilot project in ten Departments of the Government of India having large Public Interface.   The Project is now being extended to 62 ministries of Government of India

The aim of the workshop is to facilitate preparation of Sevottam Compliant Citizen Charters and Grievance Redress Mechanism for Ministries / Departments of Government of India and its Organizations for modernizing governance through better and enhanced results oriented Public Delivery System to the Citizens / Clients / Stakeholders.

The Sevottam (excellence in service) framework was designed by DARPG in 2006 as an assessment-improvement framework for public service delivery. It has basically three modules - Citizen Charter, Public Grievance Mechanism and Service Delivery Capability.  Each of the modules is further divided into three criteria and eleven elements each. The framework helps Government Departments towards improving their public service delivery.  The Performance Management Division of the Cabinet Secretariat has included two modules of the Sevottam framework as mandatory success indicator in the Result Frame Document (RFD) 2010-11 for 62 Ministries/Departments approved under Performance Monitoring and Evaluation System (PMES) by Hon’ble Prime Minister.

The Agenda of the two-day workshop is:

·         Sevottam Compliant Citizens Charters and Grievance Redress Mechanism

·         Modernizing Governance through Strategic Commitment, Awareness and Outreach

·         Enhanced Performance and Result in Outcome.

Seven Steps to Sevottam are:

a.                      Well established system of receipt of grievances

b.                     Convenient for all users and its wide publicity

c.                      Timely acknowledgement

d.                     Time norm for redress

e.                      Communication of action taken on redress

f.                      Platform for Appeal

g.                      Analysis of the grievance prone areas for making systemic improvements

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RS/SR