“Man’s capacity for justice makes democracy possible, but man’s inclination to injustice makes democracy necessary” – Reinhold Niebuhr
1)The Concept of Citizen Centric Administration:-
The concept of good governance is not new. Kautilya in his treatise Arthashastra elaborated the traits of the king of a well governed State thus: “in the happiness of his subjects lies his happiness, in their welfare his welfare, whatever pleases himself, he does not consider as good, but whatever pleases his subjects he considers as good”. Mahatma Gandhi had propounded the concept of ‘Su-raj’. Good governance has the following eight attributes which link it to its citizens:-
The 4 pillars on which the edifice of good governance rests, in essence are:-
- Ethos (of service to the citizen)
- Ethics (honesty, integrity and transparency)
- Equity (treating all citizens alike with empathy for the weaker sections)
- Efficiency (speedy and effective delivery of service without harassment and using ICT increasingly)
Citizens are thus at the core of good governance. Therefore, good governance and citizen centric administration are inextricably linked.
2)Perceptions about Governance in India:-
Public administration in India is generally perceived to be unresponsive, insensitive and corrupt.
3)Barriers to Good Governance :-
- Indifferent attitude of public servants
- Lack of Accountability
- Red Tapism
- Low levels of Awareness of the Rights and Duties of Citizens
- Ineffective Implementation of Laws and Rules
4)Necessary Preconditions for Good Governance :-
- Sound legal framework
- Robust institutional mechanism for proper implementation of the laws and their effective functioning
- Competent personnel and sound personnel management policies
- Right policies for decentralization, delegation and accountability
- Re-engineering processes to make governance ‘citizen centric’
- Adoption of appropriate modern technology
- Right to information
- Citizens’ charters
- Independent evaluation of services
- Grievance redressal mechanisms
- Active citizens’ participation
- Rule of Law – Zero tolerance strategy
- Making institutions vibrant, responsive and accountable
- Ethics in Governance
- Single Window System for Delivery of Services
Although pre-conditions above are self explanatory , one of the key per-condition is Citizen’s Charter , which needs further explanation.
Citizen’s Charter :-
- The Citizens’ Charter is an instrument which seeks to make an organization transparent, accountable and citizen friendly.
- The Citizens’ Charter, when introduced in the early 19 90’s, represented a landmark shift in the delivery of public services.
- A Citizens’ Charter is a public statement that defines the entitlements of citizens to a specific service, the standards of the service, the conditions to be met by users, and the remedies available to the latter in case of non-compliance of standards
- Six principles of the Citizens’ Charter:-
- Quality – improving the quality of services
- Choice – for the users wherever possible
- Standards – specifying what to expect within a time frame
- Value – for the taxpayers’ money
- Accountability – of the service provider (individual as well as Organization)
- Transparency – in rules, procedures, schemes and grievance redressal
- Criticism:- Though the charter in letter is ambitious and good, upholding the principles of the charter has been dismal , hence it remained a pomp and show only on paper and lost the true spirits behind it.
5)Solutions for good governance:-
- The Sevottam Model :-
- Sevottam is a Service Delivery Excellence Model which provides an assessment-improvement framework to bring about excellence in public service delivery
- The need for a tool like Sevottam arose from the fact that Citizens’ Charters by themselves could not achieve the desired results in improving quality of public services
- The Sevottam model has three modules:-
- Declare the information on citizens’ entitlements thereby making citizens better informed and hence empowering them to demand better services
- Public Grievance Redressal
- Excellence in Service Delivery
- Seven Step Model for Citizen Centricity:-
- Define all services which you provide and identify your clients
- Set standards and norms for each service
- Develop capability to meet the set standards
- Perform to achieve the standards
- Monitor performance against the set standards
- Evaluate the impact through an independent mechanism
- Continuous improvement based on monitoring and evaluation results
- Social Audit
- Social audit generally refers to engagement of the stakeholders in measuring the achievement of objectives under any or all of the activities of a government organization, especially those pertaining to developmental goals. The basic aim here is to have an understanding of an activity from the perspective of the vast majority of people in society for whom the institutional/administrative system is designed and to improve upon it
- Encouraging Citizens’ Participation, installing Suggestion Box,robust feedback mechanism and prescribed timeline for delivery of service
- Enabling Women’s Participation
- Easier service delivery to the differently abled
- Eg- Window of Hope
- Th e Mayurbhanj District Administration (Orissa) realized that from the point of view of Differentenly-abled Persons (DAPs), service delivery is extremely complex, costly and time taking
- Th e District Administration launched an initiative called ‘Window of Hope’ with the following innovations
- A Single Window System with decentralization of service delivery at the block level
- Re-engineering of complex government processes to suit the needs of the DAPs
- All facilities provided free of cost at a ‘camp’ site to attract the poorest of the poor
- Mobilisation of funds through convergence and Public –Private Partnerships to ensure 100% followup action
- Eg- Window of Hope
- Decentralization :-
- Decentralization is the process of transferring decision making power closer to the people. It includes political decentralization, fiscal decentralization and administrative decentralization
- Th e 73rd and 74th Constitutional Amendments were watersheds in the history of decentralization in India
- Effective Delegation of Certain Duties to local level by following Principle of Subsidiarity
- Principle of Subsidiarity – principle that a central authority should have a subsidiary function, performing only those tasks which cannot be performed effectively at a more immediate or local level
- Effective Grievance Redressal Mechanisms
- Central Vigilance Commission
- State Lokayuktas
- National/State Human Rights Commission
- National/State Commission for Women
- National Commission for Scheduled Castes
- NationalCommission for Scheduled Tribes
- National/State Commission for Protection of Child Rights
- National/State Consumer Disputes Redressal Commission
- Independent Police Complaints Authority (recommended)
- Consumer Courts to follow principle not technicalities:-
- ’Unfortunately, in the present case, an over-technical view has been taken by the State Commission and the District Forum in dismissing the complaint by holding that father/mother of an aggrieved person or his Power of Attorney is not entitled to file complaint under the Consumer Protection Act, 1986 (hereinafter referred to as the Act).
- It is erroneous. It is to be reiterated that under the Act, technicalities are not to be encouraged because the only procedure, which is prescribed under the Act is to follow the principles of natural justice and to decide the matter after hearing both the parties
- Lok Adalats would be effective in settling many consumer disputes. It should be stipulated by law that cases up to a particular value, say Rupees two lakhs, should first be referred to Lok Adalats
- Simplifying , Redesigning ,Rationalizing Processes (Issue of govt documents such as – driving license, pan card, passport, other certificates etc)
- E.g.- There have been many reforms in the license issuing procedure over the last several years, important among them being the launch of ‘Vahan’ and ‘Sarathi’–
a computer application to process various issues connected with the issuance of driving licenses. - Vahan can be used to issue Registration Certifi cates and Permits. Sarathi can be used to issue a Learner’s Licence, Permanent Driving Licence, Conductor Licence and also Driving School Licence to the applicants.
- E.g.- There have been many reforms in the license issuing procedure over the last several years, important among them being the launch of ‘Vahan’ and ‘Sarathi’–
- Using Modern Technology
- Making Right to Information simple:-
- Jaankari – RTI Facilitation on Phone in Bihar:-
- Bihar’s unique attempt to accept Right to Information (RTI) applications through phone calls (‘Jaankari’ project) has been selected for the fi rst prize for ‘outstanding performance in citizen centric service delivery’ at the National Awards for e-Governance.
- Under this facility, anyone can make a phone call at the specified number (a call centre) and the call centre person will record all the details. e charges for making the RTI application are included in the phone call charges
- Jaankari – RTI Facilitation on Phone in Bihar:-
- Periodic monitoring and evaluation
- Robust enforcement institution and mechanism
- Single Window Clearance and availability of service
6)Conclusion:-
Citizen centricity is the essence of any vibrant democracy and is inextricably linked to good governance. Good governance basically means creating an environment in which all classes of citizens can develop to their fullest potential. It also means provision of public services in an efficient and equitable manner to citizens.
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Petrol in India is cheaper than in countries like Hong Kong, Germany and the UK but costlier than in China, Brazil, Japan, the US, Russia, Pakistan and Sri Lanka, a Bank of Baroda Economics Research report showed.
Rising fuel prices in India have led to considerable debate on which government, state or central, should be lowering their taxes to keep prices under control.
The rise in fuel prices is mainly due to the global price of crude oil (raw material for making petrol and diesel) going up. Further, a stronger dollar has added to the cost of crude oil.
Amongst comparable countries (per capita wise), prices in India are higher than those in Vietnam, Kenya, Ukraine, Bangladesh, Nepal, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, and Venezuela. Countries that are major oil producers have much lower prices.
In the report, the Philippines has a comparable petrol price but has a per capita income higher than India by over 50 per cent.
Countries which have a lower per capita income like Kenya, Bangladesh, Nepal, Pakistan, and Venezuela have much lower prices of petrol and hence are impacted less than India.
“Therefore there is still a strong case for the government to consider lowering the taxes on fuel to protect the interest of the people,” the report argued.
India is the world’s third-biggest oil consuming and importing nation. It imports 85 per cent of its oil needs and so prices retail fuel at import parity rates.
With the global surge in energy prices, the cost of producing petrol, diesel and other petroleum products also went up for oil companies in India.
They raised petrol and diesel prices by Rs 10 a litre in just over a fortnight beginning March 22 but hit a pause button soon after as the move faced criticism and the opposition parties asked the government to cut taxes instead.
India imports most of its oil from a group of countries called the ‘OPEC +’ (i.e, Iran, Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Venezuela, Kuwait, United Arab Emirates, Russia, etc), which produces 40% of the world’s crude oil.
As they have the power to dictate fuel supply and prices, their decision of limiting the global supply reduces supply in India, thus raising prices
The government charges about 167% tax (excise) on petrol and 129% on diesel as compared to US (20%), UK (62%), Italy and Germany (65%).
The abominable excise duty is 2/3rd of the cost, and the base price, dealer commission and freight form the rest.
Here is an approximate break-up (in Rs):
a)Base Price | 39 |
b)Freight | 0.34 |
c) Price Charged to Dealers = (a+b) | 39.34 |
d) Excise Duty | 40.17 |
e) Dealer Commission | 4.68 |
f) VAT | 25.35 |
g) Retail Selling Price | 109.54 |
Looked closely, much of the cost of petrol and diesel is due to higher tax rate by govt, specifically excise duty.
So the question is why government is not reducing the prices ?
India, being a developing country, it does require gigantic amount of funding for its infrastructure projects as well as welfare schemes.
However, we as a society is yet to be tax-compliant. Many people evade the direct tax and that’s the reason why govt’s hands are tied. Govt. needs the money to fund various programs and at the same time it is not generating enough revenue from direct taxes.
That’s the reason why, govt is bumping up its revenue through higher indirect taxes such as GST or excise duty as in the case of petrol and diesel.
Direct taxes are progressive as it taxes according to an individuals’ income however indirect tax such as excise duty or GST are regressive in the sense that the poorest of the poor and richest of the rich have to pay the same amount.
Does not matter, if you are an auto-driver or owner of a Mercedes, end of the day both pay the same price for petrol/diesel-that’s why it is regressive in nature.
But unlike direct tax where tax evasion is rampant, indirect tax can not be evaded due to their very nature and as long as huge no of Indians keep evading direct taxes, indirect tax such as excise duty will be difficult for the govt to reduce, because it may reduce the revenue and hamper may programs of the govt.