PSGA too a non-starter in J&K

Public and public servants equally ignorant about CM’s most referred achievement

Ahmed Ali Fayyaz

SRINAGAR, Dec 10: March 17^th this year became a historic day of Omar Abdullah-led coalition government when Cabinet accorded its sanction to the draft of a revolutionary legislation called Jammu & Kashmir Public Services Guarantee Bill. Until that day, just a couple of states in India had introduced the law. On July 30^th, 2010, Shivraj Singh Chauhan’s government in Madhya Pradesh had pioneered the legislation and Nitish Kumar had made it a key election promise in Bihar.

Even as Omar’s Cabinet drastically reduced the number of services to be brought under its purview, this legislation was widely appreciated as an effective tool---like Right to Information Act---to eradicate red-tapism and to ensure quick delivery of ordinary services to the people. The law was passed in Budget session but it did not come into force for the next five months. Its rules were notified vide SRO No: 223 and SRO No: 224 on July 21^st and finally the Jammu & Kashmir Public Service Guarantee Act (PSGA) of 2011 came into force on August 10^th.

On August 23rd, Commissioner-Secretary of General Administration Department, Mohammad Sayeed Khan, issued Circular No: 25-GAD, making it clear for all public servants, as well as the people at large, that the law had taken effect and any state subject could take its benefit. The circular made it adequately clear that the concerned departments would have to designate appellate authorities and those failing to issue documents like Permanent Resident Certificate (PRC) and Income Certificate would be liable to punishment like under RTI Act.

According to the state Information Department’s news releases, Chief Minister, his colleagues in the Council of Ministers and other senior functionaries of the government have over a hundred times in the last four months claimed credit for creating the pro-people law. Statistics on the graph of implementation, however, do not support their claims.

Well placed authoritative sources insist that not a single public servant has received any application or issued receipt thereto under the new law. The decades-old system of paying fixed amounts of bribes to the public authorities, mostly through their orderlies and clerks, is continuing intact. A survey through three revenue districts in Kashmir valley fails to find even a single applicant who has sought and obtained justice or a single public servant who has been punished on account of delinquency under PSGA since August 10^th, 2011. And hold your breath, not a single appellate authority has been designated by any of the government departments.

“PSGA rules make it clear as to who are the appellate authorities. For example, if a Tehsildar (Territorial) is accused of violation, the Assistant Commissioner Revenue in his district automatically happens to be the appellate authority. It is a little different from the Public Information Officers under RTI Act”, said a middle-ranking official at GAD. He attributed zero-action under PSGA in the last four months to “lack of awareness” among the people as well as the public servants.

Nevertheless, another higher ranking official has no hesitation to admit it off-record that either the regime was deficient either in delivery or its will. He illustrated that Government of Punjab had floated this law months after Omar Abdullah piloted it in Assembly. “We have few services in few departments here under PSGA. Government of Punjab has brought as many as 65 services under its purview. Appellate authorities have been notified there by name and in many cases action has been taken against the defaulters”, he added.

Under SRO-224, Government has specifically mentioned several common services under PSGA’s ambit in departments of Consumer Affairs and Public Distribution (ration card, shifting of Fair Price shop from one place to another), Power Development (domestic and commercial electricity connections), PHE (domestic water connection), Revenue (Permanent Resident Certificate, Reserved Category Certificate, Dependent Certificate, Income Certificate, extracts of Fard Intikhab, Girdawari, Akas masavi/ latha, mutation, inheritance mutation, tatima shajra, chula, demarcation of land), Transport (Learners License, Driving License, Registration of Vehicles) and Housing & Urban Development (Birth Certificate, Death Certificate, NOCs for Construction of house from concerned departments, Building Permission).

Under PSGA officials are bound to issue such documents and provide the specified services within a particular timeframe and their default makes them liable to punishment, including fine and compensation to the aggrieved applicant, by appellate authority much like RTI Act. As of now, none of the officials even entertains an application under the law that is being mentioned every second day by Ministers and bureaucrats as a key achievement of the coalition government.

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