Outlook India:
Bhubaneswar: Sunday, October 06, 2019
On
October 2, the Odisha government will roll out ‘Mo Sarkar’ (My Government),
easily the most ambitious plan Naveen Patnaik has launched in his five terms in
office to ensure the accountability of public officials in delivery of
government services. Based on five parameters team work, technology,
transparency, transformation and time limit (the 5Ts) the scheme involves
taking feedback from people on the quality and timeliness of the services and
reward or punish officials on that basis. Three of the 5 Ts existed in the
Naveen government’s previous term too; the last two were added recently.
Police stations and government hospitals have been taken up in the first phase
of the programme, which is to be gradually extended to other services.
A
Department of 5T has been created to carry out the initiative under the CM’s
direct supervision. The charge of this newly created department has been given
to the man who is believed to have the CM’s eyes and ears: his trusted private
secretary V. Karthikeyan Pandian. The CM will
flag off the new initiative by calling up visitors to police stations
and hospitals, selected randomly, and get their feedback on the quality of
services they receive and the way they are treated in these establishments.
While
it is too early to measure its impact on accountability, it has certainly
raised expectations among people. “Since the CM himself is monitoring the
exercise, I am hopeful the officers would be more responsible and responsive
now,” says Gouranga Charan Das, a senior citizen in Bhubaneswar. Adds
Chakradhar Swain, a carpenter living in the Salia Sahi slum in the city; “When
I went to lodge a complaint at the police station recently, I felt the
difference in the officer’s behaviour.”
But
not everyone is so sanguine about the Mo Sarkar or 5T initiative. Pointing out
that the CM has not attended his weekly grievance cell meeting since 2008,
opposition leaders mock his plan of ensuring transparency and accountability.
“One of the first things a government committed to transparency should do is to
ensure that the RTI Act is followed in letter and spirit. This government has
done the opposite,” says RTI activist Pradip Pradhan. “Similarly, how can there
be accountability when there is no system in place to ensure it? In the absence
of a fixed limit for delivery of a service, accountability is a misnomer. It is
all hogwash and meant to fool people.”
The
views of sceptics notwithstanding, government officials are a harried lot these
days. Long used to sloth and lethargy, they have been on their toes to meet
the new demands placed on them by the government even before the Mo Sarkar
initiative gets under way. “Most people think we don’t work. Let them come and
see,” says Pradip Patra, a government employee. “They would find that we work
even harder and longer than those working in the private sector these days.”
Whatever else it has done or not done, the new initiative has certainly put
fear in the minds of government staff. “There is actually a sixth T that the
government has kept under wraps: termination,” says another government
employee, requesting anonymity.
The
fears are not unfounded. Based on a performance review, scores of government
staff have already been relieved of their services as part of the initiative to
ensure accountability. Simultaneously, the government has started a massive
crackdown on touts who ruled the roost in RTO offices and hospitals. Over 200
of them have been rounded up in the past few days. Sources in the government
say the exercise to weed out middlemen from public utilities will continue in the
days ahead.
For
obvious reasons, any realistic assessment of the outcome of the 5T initiative
has to wait a few months, if not years. But for now, one can only hope that it
would work because unlike many of the initiatives launched by the Naveen
government in the past, this one has been launched at the start of a new term
rather than on the eve of an election.
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