Citizen Charter
Citizens Charter With the development of the phenomena of liberalisation, privatization, globalization in the 1990s, structural and functional changes in governance, both at the global and national level, began to occur in the 1980s, where the concept of sustainable development, and in the 1990s, human development
To give concrete shape to both these concepts, it was considered necessary to emphasize the concept of good governance, the World Bank had fulfilled this requirement by mentioning 6 components of good governance. After this, with the aim of making socio-economic development just and human, new concepts like Citizens' Charter were given importance. Goals like protection of public rights, timely delivery of basic services to citizens, consumer rights protection were considered necessary not only for the empowerment of civil rights but also for strengthening the state and civil society.
Emergence of the notion of Citizens' Manifesto
First of all, in Britain, the Conservative Party and the Prime Minister of the government, John Major, launched the Citizen's Manifesto on 22 July 1991 to bring efficiency in the public services. This plan was strengthened by the 'service first' concept by the Labor Party-led Prime Minister Tony Blair in 1998; the Government of Malaysia introduced the Client Charter (Client Charter) in1993 to help government agencies create and implement the Citizen's Charter. Declaration), Malaysia followed the United Kingdom'slaw in this matter. In 1997, the Commonwealth Government of Australia launched the Service Charter Initiative, which aimed to better improve the quality of service.
Introduction of Citizen's Declaration in India
In 1997, under the chairmanship of the Indian Prime Minister, a conference of Chief Ministers of all the states was held, in which it was recommended on the agenda for effective and responsible administration that efforts should be made to bring citizens' manifesto for all public organisations. The plan was prepared and a committee was formed under the leadership of the Cabinet Secretary to oversee the preparation of Citizens' Charter in the identified Ministries and Departments. As per the prescribed format, the Citizen's Declaration should include the following points:
- Vision and mission statement
- Details of functions performed by the organization
- The customer groups associated with
- The organization Details of claimants.
- Details of the services provided to the customers.
- Information related to public grievance redressal.
Measures to make the Citizen's Declaration effective The Model Citizen Manifesto should be followed. Special emphasis should be laid on research and research while preparing the Citizen's Charter.
Effective role of civil society and media should be ensured to make the process of preparation of Citizen's Charter transparent and consultative.
- Time- bound re-evaluation of the Citizen's Declaration should be done.
- Citizen manifesto should be amended or changed on the basis of public feedback.
- Citizen's manifesto should be given statutory status.
- Mentioning customer expectations
Evaluation of Citizen's Charter Declaration in India
The Department of Administrative Reforms and Public Grievances Redressal got the departmental citizen declarations evaluated by a private agency in 2002-03 and again in 2008 by the Indian Institute of Public Administration,in which the following deficiencies were noticed
- Most of the civil manifestos are not properly drafted and lack important information.
- Most of the citizen manifestos have not been created through a transparent and transparent process.
- There is a lack of innovation and up-to-date information in citizen manifestos.
- Citizen declarations are not reevaluated in a time bound manner. There is a lack of public awareness and no efforts have been made inthis regard.
- There is limited interest in public organisations regarding Citizen's Manifesto, so they have not yet been introduced in many ministries or departments.
