What do you mean by citizen’s charter?

 A Citizen’s Charter is an important mechanism of citizen-centric administration. It connotes the commitment of the organisation to transparency and accountability, quality and time-frame of service delivery and grievance redress mechanism. The Citizen’s Charter scheme in its present form was first launched in 1991 in the UK. In 1998,it was relaunched and rechristened as ‘Service First’. In India, advancements in economy and literacy led to increased voices for effective service delivery and responsive administration. As a result, ‘Action Plan for Effective and Responsive Government’ was adopted at the Centre and state governments’ levels in a Conference of Chief Ministers held on 24 May, 1997 in New Delhi.

It was decided that Central and state governments will frame Citizen’s Charters, initially with those sectors that have a large public interface e.g., Public Distribution Systems, Railways, Telecom, and Posts etc. The Department of Administrative Reforms and Public Grievances (DARPG) was authorized to initiate the task of formulating, coordinating and operationalising Citizen’s Charters. The Charters included the following elements:

i) Vision and Mission Statement;

ii) Details of business transacted by the organisation;

iii) Details of clients;

iv) Details of services provided to each client group;

v) Details of grievance redress mechanism and how to access it; and

vi) Expectations from the clients.

Although India has adopted this model of Citizen’s Charters from UK, it has an added element of expectations from the clients’ to confirm that the Citizen’s Charters meet the desires of the users. DARPG launched a comprehensive website of Citizen’s Charter in Government of India on 31st May, 2002. It comprises the Citizen’s Charters of various Central Government Ministries, Departments and Organisations along with their data and links.

As on August, 2021, there were 98 Central Government’s Citizen’s Charters, 25 State Government’s Citizen’s Charters, 110 Citizen’s Charters of Central Nodal Officers and 31 of State Nodal Officers. All departments with Citizen’s Charters are instructed to advertise their Charters through print and electronic media and awareness campaigns.

Subcribe on Youtube - IGNOU SERVICE

For PDF copy of Solved Assignment

WhatsApp Us - 9113311883(Paid)