COVID Challenges - ACT

The COVID crisis is ever growing ! It becomes unaffordable for locked down people, migrant labourers, and to an extend to governments. The fight is now literally shifted between virus and hunger. Millions of migrant labours are stranded at various places and a large number of daily wage earners are miffed with the means of food. How long government and NGOs can reach to the needy, it's practically challenging. How much we can witness the heart breaking pains of human faces.

Though risky, steps are inevitable to bring back migrant labours to their home states before loosing their patience as it's a matter of survival.

Government shall think of organized shifting of people to their home towns through special trains/buses after required health check ups in controlled manner keeping the mandates of social distancing in practice. Hence people can atleast take care of their food and stay with their own dear ones. It will reduce the burden of hunger relief efforts and grievances redressals of government amidst challenges to maintain social distancing at hunger relief camps/centers. At last, it's a fight between virus and hunger and we may not be able to test the patience of people striving to find a something to feed themselves.

The scenario looks a long lasting persistence. State governments are supposed face the concerns of labour shortages especially in construction sector as an aftermath of migrants retur. It's the time to create a brigade of skilled workers where deficit and demand see. Plans have to be chalked out to mitigate the manpower shortage by badging and branding of new plumbers, electricians, construction assistants, masons, agricultural practitioners etc based on requirements. Agencies like ASAP Kerala can truly and rightly pitch into the mitigation activities. This is in need as the entire rural economy is engulfed by liquidity crunch.

1. Offering Skill Training to people based on demands on geographical basis.

2. Branding and make them organized even through skills on call like Urban Clappers

3. Make mandatory the police clearance before enrolling to the pool.

4. Their is a high chance of infiltres and criminals in the migrant workforce, hence individual employers shall have the responsibility to keep the valid IDs and police clearance certificates. Monitoring divisions have to have a clear watch on this.

5. Minimum wages shall be strictly paid to migrant labours.Working conditions and accommodations of migrant labours shall be well maintained with all the required facilities. This will be enforced to contracters inorder to avoid exploitation, risking lives of people, unhygienic living styles and to discourage people to over relay on external work forces.

The constitution offers the free movement of citizens across the country, however it becomes impossible to live up to our fundamental rights owing to the prevailing crisis.

Time has exceed to awake, plan and implement.

Let's together prepare to face the post covid challenges

Government at the doorstep of citizens

Government at the doorstep of citizens 
The public sector is regarded as the world’s largest service provider. It is a fact that efficiency of governments is no longer measured in terms of revenue it generates but it’s efficiency in delivering various services. However improvements in public service delivery are also reflected in the GDP of the country as well. Making the service delivery hassle free to citizens through transparent, affordable, and accountable manner shall be the core agenda of governments.  This requires developing technology enabled customer-centric models in par with private sector which are putting citizens at the heart of service delivery design. It was in this realization government of Delhi has initiated an innovative scheme known as the doorstep delivery of public services which is a first of the kind in the country. The main purpose of the scheme is to improve transparency, accountability, and responsiveness of the government and to add inclusiveness in the public service delivery system by ensuring equitable access to disadvantaged sections especially women, scheduled categories, and the poor. 

How it works 
The doorstep delivery of public services programme is designed in a way that people can avail various government services at their doorsteps doing away from visiting offices, approaching touts/intermediaries, and  get rid from bribing officers. This is a great relief to common public as they don’t want to be in the brave snaking queues or taking leave from their work for getting their services done from government. They just want to book their appointment for the government representative through the 24x7 call centre number 1076, online or any of the designated government offices.  Government representative called ‘mobile sahayak’ will visit their doorsteps during their preferred slots between 7.00 A.M to 10.00 PM.  Now the applicants can handover the required document to the mobile sahayak for further processing. The services will be get delivered in fifteen days. The scheme now covers seventy services from twelve departments including all services from revenue and transport department like caste certificate, income, domicile and marriage certificates, new water connections, driving license, vehicle registration, scholarships, pensions etc. Applicants have to appear before the officer in certain services like driving licence and marriage registration where physical presence is mandatory. Citizens will be charged with a nominal amount of fifty rupees as facilitation charges which is subsidized by the government. 

No visit no queue no touts 
The scheme is historic in various ways. Earlier citizens had to spend a huge amount of time and money including for travelling to avail certain government services. The opportunity costs involved like availing off or loosing livelihood are also need to be considered. Apart from this, the extra fees they had to incur for computer centre charges, informal intermediaries, bribes etc. It is revealed that an average of four times an applicant had to visit offices for getting their services delivered and to spend thousands if touts are involved. This exploitation was basically due to the lack of knowledge and unfamiliarity towards technical terms and low digital literacy.  Once the full fledged call centre and mobile sahayayaks were in place such concerns become weeded out   and the scheme emerged as a one stop solution for government services. The doorstep scheme brought a grinding halt to tentacles of touts and eventually corruption. Presence of touts sharply reduced after the launch of the programme as citizen has easy access to the government services at very reasonable cost. 

Accountability and transparency 
The department of the administrative reforms and public grievances, GOI has provided a systematic approach to improving public services which are applicable to all the central and state governments known as the Sevottam framework (Indian Standard IS: 15700: 2005). In order adhere to the principles the doorstep service scheme also incorporated the citizen charter, grievance redresses system, and service delivery standards.  Timely delivery of services is always a paramount concern of the public. Delhi is one of the states where right to time bound services is assured. Compared to other windows the doorstep scheme is maintaining a minimum SLA period (deadline for delivering the service) of fifteen days for all services where as the former was exceeding thirteen days in many cases. The same is subjected to the scrutiny of public as it comes under the ambit of right to information act. Furthermore applicant can view the real time status of their application through online or from call centre. As per the e-SLA rule respective officers are also liable for penalization in case of breaching of SLA.  It is also crucial to have a strong system of redress of public grievances which incorporated in the scheme. During the last one year Delhi government has disposed on 2.15 lakh requests, completing around 99.5% of the services booked. Receiving around 13.69 lakh calls, the call centre became an information disseminator in public service delivery. 

A good public private partnership model 
The scheme is also an emulating model in public private partnership as the front end operations and technical supports are outsourced to an external agency through a competitive bidding process. Being domain expertise and experience, technical strength, and financial propositions were the prime criteria for selecting the agency, it enabled the smooth functioning of the programme. It also improved the performance and process of public service delivery aided by technology. Within a short span of time the doorstep delivery scheme evolved as an excellent public service design in government. 

The doorstep service delivery scheme has made a paradigm shift in citizen-centric governance approach being an instrument of empowering citizens. The biggest challenge faced in public service delivery was of lack of awareness among the public and effective vertical and horizontal convergence of institutions. Being a new initiative in the governance it takes time to percolate to public. The task of sensitizing people to get rid from the concerns regarding procedural ambiguity, patterns followed for a long time for availing public services, and misinformation by intermediaries was huge. Our government is in a pursuit of massive awareness mode to empower citizens to sensitize about their rights.   It was equally important the continuous capacity building and consultations among government officials to build trust and cooperation. Government is now moving ahead with plan of making doorstep the single window for all kind of public services to make sure that citizen is at the centre of governance.

Life and Campus @ JNU

Jawaharlal Nehru University was established in 1969 by an act of parliament.[7] It was named after Jawaharlal Nehru, India's first Prime Minister. G. Parthsarthi was the first vice-chancellor.[8] Prof. Moonis Raza was the Founder Chairman and Rector.[9][10] The bill for the establishment of Jawaharlal Nehru University was placed in the Rajya Sabha on 1 September 1965 by the then minister of education, M. C. Chagla. During the discussion that followed, Bhushan Gupta, member of parliament, voiced the opinion that this should not be yet another university. New faculties should be created, including scientific socialism, and one thing that this university should ensure was to keep noble ideas in mind and provide accessibility to students from weaker sections of society. The JNU Bill was passed in Lok Sabha on 16 November 1966 and the JNU Act came into force on 22 April 1969.[11] The Indian School of International Studies was merged with the Jawaharlal Nehru University in June 1970. Following the merger, the prefix "Indian" was dropped from the name of the School and it became the School of International Studies of the Jawaharlal Nehru University.[12]

The Fact Check: the Delhi Doorstep Scheme

Is it first of this kind ?

The Delhi Doorstep Delivery (DSD)scheme is first of this kind where government representative reaches at the doors of citizens to process and deliver 100 public services. Manipur has claimed they are the first. However the Manipur government on 8th sep 2018 launched a Citizen Facilitation Centre (CFC) for specified categories and announced   'GO TO VILLAGE' scheme on 1st May 2018. 60 villages and 60 constituencies have selected. However, it's implementation was still vague. Kerala has a model called 'Akshaya' launched in 2002. Those are again CFCs at every panchayat and towns. This scheme also required digital skills for citizens to avail at home.

However, many has followed the Delhi's way. Andhra Pradhesh is the typical example. CFCs and Sahayaks at every villages.1 person for 50 people. It is yet to roll out fully. Karnataka has recently started the doorstep scheme in a very extensive way and launched the first phase. They have doorstep scheme and CFCs also. The Govt. of Odisha and Rajasthan as well also planning to implement the scheme and undertook the preliminary study with the Delhi Govt to check the feasibility. 

2. How does the Common Service Center (CSC) initiative of Central govt ? Is it a same model of Delhi's doorstep?

CSCs are the much glorified scheme of central govt in par with doorstep.Sources revealed that there are about 2.6 lakh VLE’s (Village Level Entrepreneurs), which deliver 3,462 services across the country . The total transactions for this year are about 1,975 lakh. This includes services that are both ‘government to citizen’ such as Aadhar, PAN card registration, motor vehicle license and so on, and ‘business to government’ such as train ticket booking, music downloads and so on. Some of these are also ‘information services’, such as checking one's bank balance or information on eligibility of schemes and so on. 

However, this cannot compare with DSD as no government representative is visiting homes of citizens and help them in processing. 

CSCs are also criticized for

• Exorbitant charges to citizens by the VLEs

• VLE are not financially sustainable 

• Multiple visits required 

• No proper SLA Management 

• Inordinate delay in System updates and management 

• No professional expertise 

• Absence of citizens charter 

• Inefficient citizens support mechanism 

• Issues on accessibility and time consuming 

• Lack of digital know-how (citizens points)

The issue of online services is that majority of the ordinary citizens are not equipped to go online and understand procedures. In a way, many are landed at intermediaries or touts.They charge huge amounts as processing fee. When Delhi Govt charges Rs.50 as processing fee under DSD, agents are charging thousand for income certificate and more than 4000 for marriage certificate. Hence the economic  impact of the DSD scheme is worth noticed in comparing to the CSCs of  central govt. 

3. Do MCDs of Delhi also initiated the doorstep scheme ? How the Doorstep delivery scheme stands out in comparison with the MCD public service delivery plans ?

MCDs are often blamed for corruption and mal-governance. People find huge difficulty in getting services. Though BJP opposed DSD Scheme, the SDMC has been saying that we will deliver services at your doorstep for more than a year, but couldn't materialise it. The North Delhi Municipal Corporation on  last month opened the online licensing module developed for household industrial units employing up to 9 workers and having 11 KW meters. would no longer have to go to the MCD office for submitting licence applications. This is an approval of DSD scheme by the BJP led MCDs.Study shows that around 30 per cent residents of the city have to pay bribes to get their work done in municipal corporations," (Pandey) Union minister and BJP leader Vijay Goel earlier sparked a controversy by calling Delhi’s municipal corporations corrupt (" Aap mujhse kahoge MCD kaisi hai. Mein kahoonga chor hai. Mujhe koi inkar nahi hai.)

Earlier in Delhi citizens had to visit an avg. 4 times to office for getting a service. It amounts to job loss and travel cost. Also, more than 50 % were relayed on touts and agents. Now they can get services at the doorstep. The scheme estimated saving of one million man hours in an year. It also axed touts and prevented corruption  in large. 

Chief minister Arvind Kejriwal said the scheme was the first of its kind initiative in the world letting citizens avail 100 government services at their doorstep. The scheme was launched in September last year with 40 services and 30 facilities were added in August this year. “Now citizens don’t need to stand in long queues in government offices. They can also avoid multiple visits to government offices, taking leave from office and seeking touts’ help to get public services,” he added.    

Under the scheme, citizens can call on the number — 1076 — to avail government services. After the call, a person will visit the citizen and collect documents required for the service and process the request. Citizens can book an appointment online through www.edistrict.delhigovt.nic.in or www.delhi.gov.in or by visiting any RTO or SDM office.

 “Now, there are three ways to get things done at the government offices in Delhi. First by visiting the government offices, where the success rate is 57% and 43% of applications get rejected. Secondly, by applying online, in which 45% of applications get cleared while 55% get rejected. The third is doorstep delivery, where the success rate is 91%, whereas only 9% of applications get rejected. This is due to mobile Sahayaks’s intervention to ensure that all documents are complete and attached in the right order along with the applications,” he added.    

The scheme was launched with 40 services on September 10, 2018, and 30 more services were added in August 2019. A total of 16,31,772 calls were received and of this, many were enquires. The call centre received 2,89,762 service requests and 2,64,927 applications were disposed of till December 2019. The current disposal rate is about 95% and the remaining 5% under process, said the government.    “The top services under this scheme is issuance of caste [OBC] certificate [21%], issuance of caste [SC] certificate [19%], issuance of income certificate [17%], learners license [8%], issuance of domicile certificate [5%], registration of marriage [2.5%], issuance of delayed birth order [1.8%],” an official statement said.

IITF India International Trade Fair New Delhi 14. - 27. November 2019 | India International Trade Fair

IITF India International Trade Fair New Delhi

14. - 27. November 2019 | India International Trade Fair

The IITF India International Trade Fair is an international consumer goods fair. Due to its wide range of different areas this fair is an audience magnet and very popular among exhibitors. Here, visitors will receive information on the latest products and trends in various industries.

Already for the 39th time the IITF India International Trade Fair takes place on 14 days from Thur., 14.11.2019 to Wed., 27.11.2019 in New Delhi.

India - A land of Challenges and Opportunities

India is a land of opportunities despite having challenges. Around half of the population is at the youth stage and this demographic dividend is an excellent opportunity for the country. However, it is a affect that we are not able to properly utilize the dividend and resources. It results large number of unemployment and subsequent ill effects among youth. In the absence of social security measures theses people are either going directionless or become the victims of poverty. There is a huge scope in the utilization of human resource for productive purpose in order to get rid from this vicious cycle. Primary challenge in this regard is developing a skilling ecosystem in the country where people are skilled and industries are hiring the right resources. This industry-skilling disconnect along with demand-supply mismatch shall be addressed in order to effectively utilize the resources. A demand driven approach and industry lead skill development endeavours can bear fruit. Secondly, the fact that sustainable livelihood can be emerged from responsible business enterprises. It is inevitable to have conducive environment for entrepreneurs as job creators are very important for a country like India. Entrepreneurship shall be an aspirational element for the youth in order to address the dual challenge of addressing the needs of youth and availing these human resources.

We cannot simply ignore the fact that the economic inequality in India is a pressing concern. More than eighty percentage of the wealth is accumulated at the hand of twenty percentage of the people in the country. Being one of the most populous countries, this ever-growing concern is looming as threat to the society. When economic resources are scare, condition of people are becoming worst. It is inevitable to reduce this gap by equal sharing of resources, control over resource consumption, and rationale tax measures including green taxes. . For instance, around sixty percentage of the population is engaged in agriculture and their livelihood depends on the earnings from farming. However, their produces are not getting fair price due to the over reach of intermediaries. Price fluctuations and weather phenomenons are moving them to the debt trap and resulted suicides. Poverty, malnourishment, wasting, and stunted growth are still looming as crisis even though we put best efforts to meet Global Millennium Goals and Sustainable Development Goals.  We must understand that solving these challenges are a social goal where an effective public private participation is required. Wide consultations with industries to promote responsible business and sustainable business practices can surely bring changes.

We are not udicious in using resources which are becoming a greed than need. Our environment is in a war fighting situation as it has to meet the needs and greed of the populace. Number of vehicles and density of polluting industries including prevalence of plastic are also in rise. When the effects of environment damage are equally shared the share of wealth is not equally distributed. The transparency measures like voluntary disclosure, reporting, and environmental footprints are still more to go. Country has to adopt sustainable development principles in all walks of life specifically in the industrial development and revenue sharing mechanism.

The paradox of protectors become polluters is biggest challenge in India. Corruption is beyond all threshold levels. When government servants are supposed to be at the service of common public, they become the masters of public. People are forced to avail their rights at the mercy of these officers and at utmost despair destined to offer bribes from their hard-earned money in order to save time and to avail their entitlements. In contrary, a portion of the influential section rules them with muscle and money power. This leads to the unethical practices and resulted irreparable damages to society, economy and environment. Every violation of environmental polices or social norms by this offers at the behest of high hands is against the spirit of equality which are counterproductive. The terrible lag in maintaining transparency measures, accountability standards and vigilance are costing to the citizens of the country. Technology driven elements with very intense sensitization in long run is required to make our government responsible to the public.

Though we are at the clutch of all the aforementioned concerns, the civic sense of people is to be evolved. This lack of ownership and right civic sense always side track the sustainable development initiatives that helps the corrupted elements in one way or another. The voice of public is the single most solution to all the prevailing crisis. Once the citizen is empowered and dared enough to demand their rights, no one can over power them. Also, their consciousness to protect the environment also shall work. We cannot speak against pollution when we pollute our own environment, we surely cannot complain about plastic menace as long as we use and throw plastics. Succumbing to bribe demand rather that complaining is not the sign of civic sense. Making public places dirty and talk about waste management will not be a ideal propaganda. The sense of mine and the feeling ownership (our own) seems the solution to many of the prevailing concerns.     

ICT (Information Communication & Technology) has tremendous scope to improve governance in the country. It can have a pivotal role in the empowerment of nation. As more than half of the population have access to smartphone and internet, a digital revolution can be possible in India. To an extent less human interference and automation are essential to solve many existing challenges in the country. It is an inevitable ingredient to consider ICT as a panacea to corruption and various governance challenges. However, the challenges of achieving digital literacy have huge fathoms. Collective effort under the leadership of government is a need of this time to reach the goal of digital empowerment of citizens.

Though hard to say, polarisation on the basis of various fringe and fanatic elements are in rise.. An ultra-national approach surpassing the diversity of the nation and humanity will not produce positive results. Political parties widely use caste cards in election which is dividing the social fabric of the nation. It is not rare to see the crony-majoritarian political media. Furthermore, voices against the divided politics are seen suppressed by the ruling parties in some corners which are not the true spirit of democracy.

Amidst challenges and concerns our country is in a great pace to assure faster, inclusive and sustainable growth. Initiatives like Swatch Baharath Mission, Skill India, Start Up India Stand Up India, and Digital India are right in the direction. We require more responsible leaders to drive the change. Governance and management expertise shall be acquired by our bureaucracy to make certain the reach of benefits to the grass root without leakages. Continuous awareness and sensitization exercises are to be implemented to get the required results. Women of the country shall be brought the front to lead many of these thought provoking missions.

The Size and Impact of the Doorstep Delivery of Public Service Programme of Delhi

The doorstep delivery of public services programme by Govt. of NCT of Delhi in India aims at effective delivery of public services at the doors of citizens which is free from office visits, corruption and touts. This innovative service design assures various services of government delivered at their doorsteps. Up on request government representative will reach the home of citizen in the pre-fixed time and offer required services. Delivering various public services at the doors of citizens make the term public services more meaningful. Hence our vision encapsulates the cores of transparency, accountability, and digital innovations which make the government both responsible and accountable to common public. 

Mission

1.         Responsible Governance, Accountable Government and Citizen Friendly Approaches

                We have demonstrated an outstanding commitment to bridge the gap between             government and citizen through multiple ways a) A 24*7 Call centre is functional           where citizen can call to get government services at their homes. B) A facility is   enabled online to book requests C) Special hassle free citizen facilitation centres           are                 established across the state to help public. 

2.          Technology as tool to make governance design strong and public service delivery effective 

                Well sophisticated Customer Relationship Management (CRM) software is in place to manage and monitor citizen requests. Movement and progress of files            are         automatically tracked till the end of the process and updated to the applicant              through voice call/sms/e-mail. In order to assure timely reach of government                 representatives, geo tagging and time stamping is also                 incorporated.    Furthermore, anyone can complaint their grievance at PGMS        (Public Grievance           Monitoring System) for fast resolution.

                E-SLA is an innovative design by our team to ensure timely delivery of public                services. Once the Service Level Agreement             (SLA) is breached, alerts will     automatically pop up at the officers at different levels.  To give better customs                 experience and to improve        transparency, citizen    can file their questions                 through an online RTI portal. This information shall            be provided within 30 days.     Citizen can claim for     penalty for delays in such cases. 

3.         Professional excellence in programme management  

                A well qualified and experienced professional team is deployed to look after each        and        every aspect of the programme. The team will manage, monitor and evaluate        program on a regular basis. Required redesigning, reengineering and           restructuring required any will be taken up by this project management experts           to                 appropriate levels.

Delhi is the Capital of India and it the National Capital Territory (NCT). Hence the scheme catered to the demands of around two crore people of Delhi. Actions of Delhi government are easily getting the national attention.  Following the success of the doorstep delivery of public service scheme of the Delhi governments, many states started replicating the same. The programme is large in size, scale and impact as it covers 12 departments with hundred public services. Around one crore services are delivered every year which signifies the large impact of the system. It was observed that citizen has to visit government offices in an average of four times to get a service. One visit may cause up to four hours including commuting. Similar situations aroused to time and energy cost including absence from work. These repeated harassments tempt them to try their hand with bribes or to avail services of external agents like intermediary or touts. In such cases, a citizen had to spent additional amount of 1000-4000 an average.  This was also a nurtured a tout-driven system with corrupted officials.  Doorstep delivery scheme saved millions of man-hours and crores of amounts to the common people. One can imagine the time, money and energy save by the common public with the introduction of customer friendly service delivery system.

The scheme offers diverse services of revenue, transport, water, social welfare etc. Focus is on government to government services initially which can largely impact the lives of millions. The manpower involved in the programme is also nearly thousand except normal functionaries. The scheme is designed as a Public Private Partnership model where front end operations are being handled by an external agency while sovereign functions are handled by the government staffs. The governance system of the scheme is also an innovative model in government.