Tribal RTI activist suggests online system to cut red-tapism

VAPI: Fed up of red-tapism in Valsad district administration, an Right to Information (RTI) activist has shot off a letter to chief minister NarendraModi requesting him to start an online visitors and public service monitoring system (OV&PSMS) in all sevasadans (government and semi government offices).
A tribal from Pardi taluka Bipin Patel has started collecting data of all queries raised by competent authorities regarding specific clearances on various applications which can collated for the purpose of an online system.
"I had a bitter experience of red-tapism in revenue department for getting normal title certificate of my client's land," Patel, who is also a law graduate, said.
The survey conducted by Patel using RTI has revealed that majority of people had to visit the government offices at district level at least four times even for minor clearances. In almost all cases, the clearances were given after the prescribed time limit and the ratio of negative clearances are also found to be very high. "Some applicants complained of being harassed with unnecessary queries which did not match at all with current provisions and were irrelevant," Patel wrote in his letter.
According to RTI activist, making an online public service monitoring system will not only improve the quality of services at every government offices, but will also expedite the work. He has suggested setting up of a high-tech data collection centre in every seva sadan campuses.
The data will also include the photographs of each applicant. The data thus received will be passed on to Jan Sampark Karyalay in Gandhinagar through a linked server.
The data will have the number of applicants coming to the seva sadans, the nature of their work, number of times they visited for the same work and the names of specific government servants or departments whom they met for their work.
"The system should be designed in such a way that all the suspected practices like delays of every applicant will be shown blinking in red," Patel said.