Case study: Innovation in service delivery

Head: CSCs delivering G2C services, offline, in Lakhimpur

Intro: Even after having a close similarity in terms of poor information technology infrastructure with other state districts, Lakhimpur in Assam has unparalleled position in timely delivery of services, using common services centres as an extended arm of the government

Problem: In Assam, almost 16 government-to-citizen (G-2-C) services are being delivered on time, electronically, in two districts, Nagaon and Goalpara. However, people in rest of the 25 districts still depend on the manual and inefficient services delivery. Scaling e-district to cover whole state, and hence enabling an online interface between government and citizen in almost all lien departments, might take at least a few years. [Detailed project report, DPR is yet to be approved from the Centre] So what will the government do? Will it just wait and watch, as it does in most other areas, like the implementation of social sector schemes?

Implementation: Jayant Narlekar, a young official of the Indian administrative services holds an answer. After joining as the deputy commissioner of Lakhimpur district in Assam, in 2008, Narlekar planned to deliver services on time, with utmost transparency, and keeping citizen in the centre of services delivery. As result, Lakhimpur administration identified, in September 2009, almost six to seven services for which the citizens did not have to go to the deputy commissioners or some other government office. Under the new system, which is virtually a replica of the e-district system, the applications (along with the required documents) could be dropped at the nearest CSC. After having a critical mass of the applications, the operator or the village level entrepreneur, VLE, then visit the deputy commissioners office and submits all applications to an official in the e-governance cell, who after scrutinizing the forms, passes it on to the concerned authorities, including the deputy commissioner. Within the given date, the operator again visits the office and brings back the certificates issues over the applications. With the help of mobile phone, the operator informs people to collect their certificates, while they visit to the CSC. The services primarily include permanent residence certificate (PRC), caste certificate, non-creamy layer certificate, legal heir certificate and permission for special events.

The elimination of direct interface of citizen and government resulted in reduction of corruption. In addition, the strict monitoring and review of the programme from the deputy commissioner office always kept officials on their tow. Our objective was to ensure transparency, to ensure that the citizen gets to know everything, Narlekar said. So put all information in public domain, because that curbs corruption. Not through sending jail one or two guys, he said. Admitting the delay caused due to delivery of services, he said, We fixed deadlines for the delivery of various kinds of certificates. We gave them vendor license. They can distribute certificate on our behalf. We did it in 33 kiosks. The facility we provided was that citizen dont have to go to government office. Firstly, they need to fill and then submit the application form to the office. There is a lot of physical interface which I tried to reduce through the mechanism.

Process reengineering While the delivery of services were being done by collaboration between government and the VLEs, the single window system of applying and getting service involved process reengineering of the existing process. Explained Narlekar, People have to just visit CSCs, take the form, fill it and then submit it. It worked in two ways. Either an operator goes to different offices like circle office, Tahsildar and Police and club it with the application and forward it to me or the person will collect the information and give it to you. You will then send it to me. I will then send it back to you within the given period. We also take mobile number during this process. As soon as your certificate is ready, an automatic SMS will be generated to inform the applicant. Certificates are either issued from my end or from SDM office. We both will get these reports from circle office, he added. For example, when you apply for a caste certificate, the Tahsildar reports about your caste and location, the police give report on whether there has been any first information report (FIR). Until these two reports are given, you wont be able to get a caste certificate. The public often have to spend a lot of time in doing rounds of these two offices. Besides delivery of certificates, according to the district officials, a new system for streamlining implementation of Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA) was also being piloted in the district under Narlekar, again with the of CSCs operators. Lakhimpur being one of the most backward districts in country was chosen first for implementation. Pre Narlekar, things were not in good shape. The prime issue was that as per MGNREGA rule, government will provide a job card within 15 days, which rarely happened. Secondly, the workers had a problem in getting the wages. Elaborating on the devised solutions, Narlekar said, We urged CSCs to participate in the implementation of MGNREGA. We requested them to offer information about the schemes, in the form of print outs from the kiosks. The information will include name of panchayat, name of the

ward, the scheme and the amount released for the scheme. There will be a number of people interested in getting the information, even at the panchayat level. The kiosk operator will have motivation. On every print out he earns one rupee. The more he distributes, the more will be his or her profit. Besides, applications for job card and work too could be submitted to the CSC. Usually, you apply it to the secretary of gram panchayat. But besides, people could have another option of applying at CSCs. For every application, the village level entrepreneur (VLE) will be given some money. So we got somebody who is more interested in doing it, than the government officials, who are alleged to be least interested. So he will take the application and forward it to the block development officer (BDO). We developed small software, where we keep a track of the number of application sent to the BDO. The district administration also piloted a complaint registration system, under which the CSC were to receive petition and again forward it to the DC office. For every petition, administration offered 30 to 50 paise to the VLE. And we really got some genuine complaints. The BDO and other officials got scared. Because there was a private channel directly linked to me. And information could come to me through email. It had great deterrent effect. The complaint petition were directly sent to me, he said. Administrative will plays an important role in running the government machinery with efficiency and transparency. This theory has been put into practice in one the most poor and remote districts of Assam. While software, hardware or networks supplement the administration in running it smooth, Narlekars example prove that it is actually the decisiveness, ownership and collaboration skills in the public servants which provide the actual stimulus.