Subir Roy: Fix the failed citizen's charter

VALUE FOR MONEY

Precisely ten years ago, India decided to adopt the institution of the citizen's charter as a tool to deliver better government to its people. The decision was endorsed by a chief ministers' conference, thus ensuring the participation of state governments also. Without this it would have been futile to hope to reach the grassroots. But ten years down the line, in perhaps a fitting reflection of the state of public service delivery, a study reveals that the citizen's charter remains a virtual dead letter, with just about a couple of redeeming features: one, the study of a near failure throws light on what is wrong, and two, all careful studies yield collateral insights which are useful takeaways.

The citizen's charters were initiated by the John Major government of the UK and then taken forward by the government of Tony Blair. In fact, the origin of the idea goes back to Margaret Thatcher, who with the help of the then chairman of Marks & Spencer, once an iconic British retailer, undertook to radically re-examine the scope and effectiveness of public sector delivery. The UK citizen's charter requires a public delivery organisation to apply for a charter mark, which involves agreeing to provide certain minimum standards of service. Performance is reviewed periodically and measured against the norms agreed to. If you fall down, your charter mark will be taken away, as happened once with passport office.

New Labour under Blair wanted the public sector to be equal to the private sector in terms of quality delivered round the clock. After ten years Blair has left behind an expanded and more purposeful public delivery mechanism. Most notably, Britain today has a bigger health service with shorter waiting periods, in contrast to a hugely costly and inefficient healthcare system in the US. This is what, in essence, India sought to replicate.

The fact that the citizen's charter in India is broken is the conclusion of an extensive national survey undertaken by the well-known Bangalore-based NGO Public Affairs Center, led by economist and former IIM Ahmedabad director Samuel Paul. It has accessed as many charters (561 in all) as it could lay its hands on (there is no comprehensive list of charters that exist in the country), weeded out those which do not deserve to be called a charter (some even have messages from ministers), subjected 200 to a rigorous desk test and then undertaken field studies of 80 out of these 200. The field work has involved interviewing over 300 officials and nearly 1,200 citizens.

After ten years most users of public services and officials who deliver them either don't know of charters or are unfamiliar with them. A key finding is that grievance redress, which should be a cornerstone of the charter system, is not facilitated. Hence we find the Right to Information Act, which is meant for more than that, being mainly used for grievance redress. Critically missing is the periodic review of whether a department has lived up to its charter. This is natural when many charters don't even clearly promise a measurable delivery and charters on websites are seldom updated.

In its most elementary and functional form, a charter should be up on an easily readable notice board telling citizens the following: we deliver this (like ration cards or driving licences), this is the way to get it, this is what it costs, you should get what you want in this many days, if you don't this is the person (name, phone number, etc) to complain to and do come once in, say, three months and tell us (feedback) how we are doing.

But this is too much to expect. Of the 200 charters carefully examined, none was rated very good (scoring over 75 on hundred), just less than a third were rated good (51-75) and the vast majority, 60 per cent, were merely average (26 to 50). The detailed field survey of the 80 institutions with charters came up with the same proportions, just under 60 per cent were rated average or below (scoring one to six on ten) and only 15 per cent were found very good (scoring nine or ten).

For a charter to deliver, it has to be properly drafted (incorporating the essential elements outlined above), and there has to be a critical periodic review. How to get this done? A group of experts discussing the PAC report was against passing a law to make charters and their format mandatory. They felt that the provision for proactive disclosure contained in the Freedom of Information Act could be used to serve the purpose. My feeling is you need to push to get things moving. Instead of a law whose provisions can be flouted with impunity, maybe someone should take a PIL to the Supreme Court, which can, with the help of a committee of experts, mandate the proper functioning of charters and monitor this, say, every six months for three years. If this doesn't work, nothing will.

Despite the gloomy findings, there is one ray of hope. It is not as if nothing works in India when it comes to governance. They do, in Tamil Nadu and Andhra Pradesh, which take charters far more seriously than the rest of the country and where there is a high level of public awareness about charters, thanks to the role of an NGO, Catalyst Trust. The PAC study categorically recommends, "Other states should follow the Tamil Nadu model and leverage civil society organisations to increase awareness of the charter programme."

In terms of regions, the south scores the best, the west and the north follow some way behind and the absolute laggard is the east, behind even the northeast. In the east and northeast, Orissa, Bihar, Assam, Meghalaya and Sikkim""all have an offering to make, no matter how modest. The state that scores a total blank is West Bengal. The report thus collaterally tells us where to begin if we want to set things right.

subir.roy@bsmail.in