A full decade ago, Chandrababu Naidu made a point about the quick issuance of driving licences, and easy digital access to land records and house tax calculations — which he showcased to Bill Clinton when the then US president came visiting. Since then, all of Karnataka has digitised its land records through the Bhoomi project that now has a database on 20 million land holdings. Other states have similar projects. Now the Centre has picked up the thread, with the idea of Service Level Agreements, or SLAs, under which citizens will be guaranteed the delivery of specific services (like the issue of driving licences and ration cards) within a specified time frame. And, as in the case of the Right to Information law, officials who fail to deliver will have to pay personal penalties.
The spread of the idea of guaranteed service delivery to citizens as a matter of right, is entirely to be welcomed. For far too long has there been a colonial hangover, whereby those sitting behind government desks look at everyone approaching them as supplicants who seek favours — with “speed money” usually expected as a return favour. By overturning this benighted logic, and empowering the citizen, the Centre has belatedly woken up to one of the most important areas needing administrative reform. As with the project for issuing unique identification numbers, the prime beneficiaries will be the poor and the disadvantaged.
However, it is one thing to ask for accountability from those not meeting the specified standards of service delivery, and quite another to institutionalise government processes so that front-line functionaries can deliver as required. Passports simply cannot be issued within a reasonable time if the government does not create an adequate back-end delivery system that can cope with the numbers seeking passports. But there is need for front-end reform too, as anyone who has been to the regional transport offices that issue driving licences in Delhi knows — because “touts” flourish, with obvious linkages to the officials who are supposed to do the work.
It is interesting that the SLA project is carefully limited in scope, with initial trials in Delhi (where else!). It does not cover service issues like the delivery of clean water, or a guaranteed frequency of the public bus service — issues that involve finance and organisation, and where failure cannot be pinned on a “dealing officer”. Perhaps the explanation would be that such larger accountability is political, and politicians have to get re-elected every five years. That is true enough, but if the intellectual underpinning for the SLAs is the idea of a citizen’s charter, it is hard to argue that clean water and public transport should not be part of such a charter. The counter-argument, which has some validity, is that the best can be the enemy of the good. Limiting the scope of SLAs in the initial stages may help make a good beginning, and the initial success will then make it possible to embark on a more ambitious programme down the road.