Provisions of UPA-era bill may see light of the day through a new window

New Delhi: A key UPA era antigraft bill — Right of Citizens for Time Bound Delivery of Goods and Services and Redressal of their Grievances Bill, 2011— could make a comeback, albeit in a new avatar. The bill was drafted amid the Anna Hazare movement.

The PMO has taken steps to revive some key elements of the bill, ET has learnt. The first round of inter-ministerial discussions has explored a non-legislative route for building a new public response system for every department such as publication of citizens’ charters, ensuring ‘universal digital access’ on a single platform and strengthening grievance redressal systems further.

The move comes within days of the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Personnel, Public Grievances, Law and Justice taking up the matter afresh with the government.


While the Modi government does not appear inclined on reviving the bill, it is looking at implementing its key elements. Central to the move is every department publishing its ‘citizens’ charter’ and then following it through. The charter is the commitment of an organisation towards standard, quality and timeframe of service delivery, grievance redress mechanism, transparency and accountability.

Alongside, there is a push for ‘universal digital access to services’ for facilitating ease of accessing public services through apps or web-based platforms. The ‘service plus’ meta data based e-service delivery platform in use by the panchayati raj ministry is being considered a good model to build upon. The National Informatics Centre of the IT ministry and the department of personnel and training are closely collaborating in the effort.

The parliamentary panel has been reminding the government on the need for the UPA-era bill or such a scheme. “The committee reiterates its recommendation as it believes that passage and enactment of this bill will ensure time-bound delivery of goods and services and facilitate timely redressal of grievances,” the panel, chaired by BJP’s Bhupendra Yadav, said in its September report.