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All Chandigarh departments to be covered under Right to Services Act
In the first phase, only five UT departments and the Chandigarh municipal corporation were included under the Act.
City residents will soon be able to file complaints under the Right to Services (RTS) Act against all UT departments, including police, excise and taxation, labour, sports and social welfare, which offer public services.
For the purpose, the Chandigarh RTS Commission, in the second phase of enforcing compliance with the RTS Act, has started the process of listing services provided by all UT departments.
In the first phase, only five UT departments and the Chandigarh municipal corporation (MC) were included under the Act.
Confirming the development, KK Jindal, UT RTS commissioner, said, “The list of services provided by different departments is being prepared. The heads of departments have been asked to provide the details to the commission. Once the list is compiled, it will be sent to the UT administration for issuing a gazette notification. We will also verify the services being provided by their counterparts in Punjab and Haryana.”
After much delay, in September 2019, the UT administration had notified 188 services under the Chandigarh RTS Rules, 2019, holding officials accountable if they didn’t provide services to applicants within the resolution period fixed in the notification.
Earlier, UT had adopted the Punjab RTS Act in January 2018, and constituted a one-man RTS Commission later in April. The list of services and the rules were drafted by the commission headed by Jindal.
FIRST PHASE
“In the first phase, our focus was only on six major providers of public services – Chandigarh MC, DC office, Registering and Licensing Authority (RLA), estate office, Chandigarh Housing Board (CHB) and State Transport Authority (STA),” Jindal said.
Out of the 188 services notified under the Act, 90 belonged to MC, 39 to DC office, 19 to RLA, 17 to estate office, 11 to CHB and 12 to STA.
Following the notification of services, all UT departments covered under the RTS Act will be legally bound to appoint a designated official for each service.
It will also be mandatory for them to display the information about their designated official and resolution time of different services on the website as well as on their premises for wider publicity.
Except MC, the five departments, for which services have already been notified, have already complied with these provisions. They have also been directed to bring their services online. RLA was one of the first to list its services online, along with details of appellant authorities.
