Right to Service Acts in India— Fundamental Governance Reforms or an Exercise in Political Rhetoric?: A Case Study of Delhi Administration
| Published date | 01 December 2017 |
| Date | 01 December 2017 |
| DOI | 10.1177/0019556117726707 |
| Author | Manish Garg |
| Subject Matter | Articles |
Article
Indian Journal of Public
Administration
63(4) 537–556
© 2017 IIPA
SAGE Publications
sagepub.in/home.nav
DOI: 10.1177/0019556117726707
http://journals.sagepub.com/home/ipa
1 Government of NCT of Delhi, New Delhi, India.
Corresponding author:
Manish Garg, Government of NCT of Delhi, New Delhi, India.
E-mail: garg.manish@hotmail.com
Right to Service
Acts in India—
Fundamental
Governance Reforms
or an Exercise in Political
Rhetoric?: A Case Study
of Delhi Administration
Manish Garg1
Abstract
Right-based approach to governance became popular in India in the first decade
of present century with the passage of legislations conferring Right to Information,
Right to Work in rural areas, and Right to Primary Education upon its citizens. This
article examines the next step in that direction—passage of Right to Service (RTS)
Acts by a number of Indian States thereby providing its citizens the right to time-
bound delivery of notified public services. These Acts not only empower citizens
to make claims against the government if the rights are violated but also serve as a
tool for the politicians and the senior bureaucrats to control lower bureaucracy.
This article traces the genealogy of RTS Acts in Citizen’s Charter movement
of the1990s in the UK and evaluates their progress and results with the help
of various theories and concepts used for improving the public service delivery.
How inept implementation has thwarted the promise of accountability inherent in
these Acts will be seen in detail while piercing the veil of statistical data.
Keywords
Governance, right to information, public service delivery, citizens’ charter, right
to service, bureaucracy, reputation, accountability
A customer is the most important visitor on our premises. He is not dependent on us.
He is not an interruption in our work. He is the purpose of it. He is not an outsider in
our business. He is part of it.
—Mahatma Gandhi
538 Indian Journal of Public Administration 63(4)
Introduction
Delivery of efficient and effective public services treating citizens as customers
is a hallmark of a well-functioning democracy. In case of public goods having
large number of externalities and market failure, the state, arguably, remains the
best provider. Improving quality and access of public services are the key features
of any public sector reforms carried out anywhere in the world. In the context of
developing countries, such as India, the outcome of poverty alleviation pro-
gramme is also contingent upon the efficient delivery of public services to the
poor who need them the most (Besley & Ghatak, 2007). Lant Pritchett has argued
that India has got a booming economy and democracy with world class elite insti-
tutions, but the capability of Indian state to implement its policies and programmes
and in delivering public services is weak, making it a ‘flailing’ state (Pritchett,
2009). Pritchett also sounds a word of caution—economic growth may not show
long-term sustainability in absence of a strong state capability. Red-tapism and
corruption are among the most widespread problems that plague India’s adminis-
trative set-up. India is ranked 85 out of 175 countries in 2014 on Corruption
Perception Index prepared by Transparency International.1 The poor suffer more
than the rich due to inefficiencies and corruption in service delivery, thereby defeat-
ing the principle of social equity behind many government welfare programmes.
One important measure adopted to improve delivery of public services has been
the Citizen’s Charter movement pioneered by the UK in the 1990s, as a part of
wider New Public Management (NPM) reforms, with the intent to increase trans-
parency and accountability of the government. The main themes of the Charters
incorporated in the White Paper published in 1991 (Cabinet Office, 1991 quoted
in Drewery, 2005) have been prescribing higher standards of service and perfor-
mance targets, transparency and openness, provision of choice wherever possible,
better accessibility and a better machinery for redressal of grievances along
with payment of compensation. The Chief Ministers’ conference held in 1997 in
India also resolved to formulate and operationalise Citizens’ Charters in public
bodies having large user-interface (education, health, transport, social welfare,
etc.) following the UK model. The Department of Administrative Reforms and
Public Grievances (DARPG)2 has launched a comprehensive website3 of Citizens’
Charters in Government of India. The basic premise behind the charters has been
to treat the users of public services as ‘customers’ thereby improving delivery
through contractualisation of public services. However, these charters were, at the
most, soft contracts with more or less moral connotations without any legal conse-
quences and could not have any significant impact in improving delivery of public
services in India. Therefore, the twelfth Report of the Second Administrative
Reforms Commission4 (ARC) called for further improvement in delivery of
public services in 2009. In response, since 2009, around twenty states/UTs5 in
India have enacted Right to Service (RTS) Acts or popularly called Public Service
Guarantee Acts6 to ensure time-bound delivery of public services to its citizens.
Right-based system of governance took off in India in the first decade
of present century with the enactment of Right to Information Act, 2005;
National Rural Employment Guarantee Act, 2005; and Right to Education Act,
To continue reading
Request your trial