New Delhi, Mar 9 (IANS): Activists Saturday urged the government to ensure the quick passage in parliament of the grievance redressal bill that aims to speed up the delivery of public services like passports and ration cards, among others.
The Right of Citizens for Time-Bound Delivery of Goods and Services and Redressal of their Grievances Bill, 2011, was approved Thursday at a cabinet meeting chaired by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh.
The bill aims to ensure that public services like passports, birth and death certificates, driving licences and ration cards are issued within the specified periods.
Talking to reporters here, members of National Campaign for People's Right to Information (NCPRI) said the bill was extremely important and there should be no further delay in its passage.
"There are so many problems faced by the common man. This bill will be a second RTI (right to information) and bring a revolution," activist Aruna Roy told reporters here.
"The major hurdles have been crossed, it should be passed in this session (of parliament)," she said.
NCPRI co-convener Nikhil Dey said the legislation should not get trapped in the debate of centre vs state, as the main opposition, the Bharatiya Janata Party has said the bill in its present form is against federal structure.
"As per the constitution, 'actionable wrongs' are in the concurrent list. So both the centre and the states can form laws on it and it will not be in contradiction," Nikhil Dey said.
"There is no conflict if a central law is there. Under the central law, state and centre should have separate institutions. The state grievance redressal mechanism should not be under the centre," he said.
He also added that the central law shall be applicable only for central services, and states which already have laws can work parallel.
Anjali Bhardwaj of he NCPRI said the act will reduce the burden on RTI.
"There are so many RTI applications because there are so many grievances," Bhardwaj said.
Once passed by the parliament, the bill will be binding on the states.