Hry's Right to Services panel working as watchdog on bureaucratic delays

Chandigarh: To realise the parents-patriae role of the welfare state towards its residents, Haryana, like many other states of India, legislated the Haryana Right to Service Act in the year 2014.

Since 2015, after Manohar Lal Khattar led government has come to power, the state has full-fledged Right to Service Commission as a watchdog institution to guard the Public's Right to get services in a timebound manner.

Giving information in this regard Chief Commissioner, Haryana Right to Service Commission, TC Gupta said that under the Act, an eligible person can apply before a Designated Officer to seek notified services of various Departments of the Government within notified timelines. If such officers fail to deliver the service timely or wrongfully reject the application, the aggrieved eligible person can seek redressal of his grievance before the First Grievance Redressal Authority and Second Grievance Redressal Authority.

If a person still struggles to get the said service, he or she can approach the Haryana Right to Service Commission. But, it is not unusual to find significant gaps between the goals set by the promising Legislations and the actual delivery by the Bureaucracy.

He said that in order to bridge this gap, the Government resorted to digitisation and Tech-driven innovation. Consequently, this system of filing of appeals before the next appellate authority which existed in manual form, hitherto!, was overhauled and taken to an Autopilot Mode.

Gupta further said that the year 2021 has ushered in a new dawn of hope for people as the State Government has catapulted this application disposal / grievance redressal structure into automated mode - by suitably amending the legislation to presume consent of the applicant in case a notified service is not delivered within notified timelines while filling the form for any service.

This appeal shall now be filed before the First or Second Grievance Redressal Authority by the Auto Appeal System - AAS which is a beautiful software - conceived by the Commission and implemented by the National Informatics Centre under the aegis of IT Department, Govt of Haryana - dedicated to people of Haryana by the Chief Minister Manohar Lal Khattar.

Gupta said that the most crucial (and innovative) aspect of this system is the unique feature where State is raising an appeal for a person in civil matters. Hitherto the concept of state filing appeal for citizens has been wedded to criminal litigation involving sky rocketing expense to one's dignity.

But the Auto Appeal System raises an auto concern ticket before the next authority, on behalf of the applicant, which will drastically cut down the civil litigation filed against the state by citizens for denial of services bringing down the overall tortious as well as civil liability of the state.