M A I N   N E W S

1.45 lakh requests pending at Suvidha centres
Chitleen K Sethi
Tribune News Service

Chandigarh, May 28
A survey by Punjab’s Information Technology (IT) Department has found that more than 1.45 lakh applications received at the Suvidha centres in the districts are pending, to be acted upon by various government offices.

This is the first time that a districtwise survey of the pendency of the applications received at these centres has been carried out and the picture that has emerged is startling.

Registering the highest pendency are the LA (licences and ammunition) branches in the deputy commissioners' office. Out of the total number of applications pending, almost 65,000 applications relate to issuing of new arms licence, renewal, issue of duplicate licence book, permission to purchase and sell weapons, entry of ammunition in the licence book, transfer of the licence to legal heir etc.

As on April 30, 2010, in Amritsar alone over 15,500 applications are waiting to be considered by the LA branch. Over 12,500 such applications are pending in Muktsar and another almost 10,000 requests are pending in Sangrur. Ropar has over 5,000 such applications yet to be disposed of.

The next most inefficient offices in the state seem to be the tehsils. Over 24,000 applications dealing with the citizen services relating to revenue tehsils are pending. Interestingly, however, out of the 24,000 applications over 23,800 of these are of Tarn Taran alone. Other than the tehsil office, the SDM’s office at Tarn Taran has also registered a pendency of over 28,800 applications.

The Civil Surgeon’s office in Sangrur has almost 1,500 requests awaiting attention. The Civil Surgeon’s office in Moga comes next with over 600 applications pending. The highest number of applications (1,784) asking for demarcation of land are pending in Ludhiana, followed by Bathinda (293).

Requests pertaining to small works like procuring copies of government orders are pending in thousands across the state. Over 2,000 such applications are pending in Ropar and another almost 1,400 such applications are pending in Ludhiana. Another 1,380 requests for getting copies of old registries are pending in Ludhiana. Almost a thousand applications asking for a dependent’s certificate are also pending in Ludhiana. Ludhiana, Gurdaspur, Fatehgarh Sahib and Amritsar score low in dealing with applications, requesting for counter signatures on documents.

The Principal Secretary, information technology, Punjab, Sarvesh Kaushal, said, “As per allocation of business rules, the Department of IT has the mandate of rolling out e-governance and administrative reforms. Development of an efficient management information system (MIS) on citizen’s services is a step in that direction. Suvidha centres in their present shape are offering only front services. Quality of sevice to citizens will depend on the performance of government offices at the back end. The IT Department will regularly monitor the citizen services delivery and provide expert advise on infrastructure, manpower and delivery systems re-engineering in public interest. We are shortly making a web-based portal where a daily bulletin of pendency will be flashed on the state government websites.”

Some of the DCs pointed out that one of the prime reasons that their offices were not being able to deliver efficiency was acute shortage of staff. “There has been no recruitment of state civil and allied service officers for almost 10 years and that is showing up in the administrative performance. There are districts where one officer is holding the charge of four or five posts and then there are posts which are manned by contractual and ad hoc staff,” said a DC.