Now babus will have to pay for sitting on files

NEW DELHI: Delhi government’s order that proposes to penalise officials found guilty of sitting on files has implemented the order as part of the Service Level Agreement (SLA), an initiative spearheaded by the Prime Minister for more transparency and efficiency in government functioning .

In the first phase, Delhi government has put seven departments — food & civil supplies, trade & taxes, office of the divisional commissioner , transport, MCD, NDMC and office of the chief electoral officer — in the ambit of the SLA.

In the second phase, the government proposes to put the SLA on the e-goverance platform. Added Prasad, ‘‘ The web-based SLA will be integrated with Aap ki Sunwai (an electronic grievance management system) and the Jeevan service bureaus.’’ The system will also generate MIS reports indicating the number of applications received and penalties levied besides other information.

Officials added that the performance will be monitored electronically and penalty for delay in services will be calculated by the system .

Senior government officials claimed Delhi government would be one of the first to implement the agreement which has been at the discussion stage for some time now. It reportedly started the process of identifying the criteria in September this year.

As part of the SLA, several other services have also been made mandatory for the Jeevan centres. These include issuing caste, income, OBC and SC/ST certificates along with domicile and nationality and citizenship certificates. This would allow centralised monitoring of the services.