Daijiworld Media Network - Bengaluru (RJP)
Bengaluru, Feb 7: Karnataka Guarantee of Services to Citizens Act, 2011 or Sakala, introduced on March 1, 2012, has failed miserably in its objective, it is revealed. And this, despite Sakala being touted as a 'model' for the rest of India.
Even four years after its introduction, very few citizens are aware of the benefits of Sakala. It is believed that more than 60 percent of the citizens, particularly in rural areas, do not know anything about Sakala. A status report on Sakala, compiled by the Karnataka Sakala Watch, a group of citizens’ organisations monitoring the implementation of the programme, says that the scheme has still not met its objective of helping citizens in availing government services within a time frame.
The report was released by Santosh P Nargund, convenor of Karnataka Sakala Watch on Saturday.
The report states that although the government had wanted to bring over 3,000 services under Sakala, only 725 were offered by the end of 2015, with only 135 of them being offered online.
The number of overdue applications had risen to around 15,300 by the end of 2015. But so far not a single disciplinary action has been initiated under the Act.
The citizens are entitled to demand compensation for defaulted service delivery. But the number of cases in which compensatory costs were awarded have come down from over 250 in 2013 to 55 in 2015. The report mentions that only Rs 68,000 has been paid as compensation in four years, from the corpus fund of Rs 5 crore.
Nargund also pointed out that advertisements about Sakala have become scant and it has been over eight months since the monthly report on the scheme was released. Moreover, the Sakala Mission has been without a full-time director for the last six months.
"It was a model scheme in the country. But now the quality of its service has gone down so drastically that even a state like Bihar offers better service," Nargund opined.
The report was submitted to chief minister Siddaramaiah and law minister T B Jayachandra later.