From Our Special Correspondent
Daijiworld Media Network - Bangalore

Bangalore, May 4: Enthused by the tremendous success of Sakala, guaranteeing the charter of services to the citizens in a time-bound manner, which was launched last month, the D V Sadananda Gowda ministry has decided to include queries pertaining to the implementation of the Right to Information (RTI) Act also to the list of 151 services from 11 departments, thereby offering a bouquet of 152 services to the citizens.

Karnataka’s Law and Parliamentary Affairs Minister S Suresh Kumar, who is also personally monitoring the implementation of Sakala, furnished the first month’s progress report and said the queries on RTI would be brought under the purview of Sakala from the end of this month.

Briefing reporters on the implementation of the Sakala under the Karnataka Guarantee of Services of Citizens Act, 2011, Suresh Kumar, who is also in charge of Urban Development Department, said a total of 10 lakh applications for various services were received and 8.5 lakh applications were disposed of, achieving 98.59 per cent success since the launch of Sakala throughout the State from April 2.

``Our objective is to ensure even better performance in the disposal of applications pertaining to Sakala,” the minister said.

He also explained that the Government expected to receive 10 to 15 lakh applications per month in the coming months too under Sakala as more and more citizens would become aware of the services.

Chitradurga district ranked first place in disposal of applications, followed by Uttara Kannada and Davanagere. Gulbarga was rated lowest district, ranked 30th in disposal of applications, Chikmagalur 29th and Bangalore Rural 28th, he said.

Revenue, Commercial Taxes and Transport Departments topped the table in the disposal of applications while Education, Food and Civil Supplies and Health and Family Welfare Departments occupied lowest ranks.

In terms of number of applications received per lakh population, Mandya district has received highest number of applications (1520), followed by Hassan (1392), and Davanagere (1297), while Bijapur (687), Yadgir (703), and Bidar (749) occupied last position.

Dharwad and Chitradurga districts recorded highest number of disposal of applications (85%) followed by Dakshina Kannada (83%) and Mandya (82%) while Davanagere (62%), Bidar and Tumkur (64%) and Chikmagalur (65 %) were in bottom of the table.

In terms of minimum time taken to disposal of applications, the Uttara Kannada (0.33%), Chikballapura (0.48%) and Dakshina Kannada (0.58%) were least defaulters while Gulbarga (4.11%), Kodagu (3.39%) and Kolar (2.87%) were more defaulters.

The 24x7 Call Centre set up by the Government to redress queries by people recorded 23,000 calls and out of them only four out of the 145 specific complaints pertained to Sakala programme, he said.

The minister said the Government planned a series of programmes to tone up the implementation of Sakala and also the sensitize the officers later this month.