Delhi Government delivered on 99.5% of doorstep service requests

When launched by chief minister Arvind Kejriwal on September 10 last year, the scheme offered 40 services. Last month, on August 11, the government added 30 more services, taking the total number of services offered to 70.

In a year since the launch of doorstep delivery of services, the Delhi government has delivered on 2.15 lakh requests, completing around 99.5% of the services booked, according to a report prepared by the administrative reforms department on Monday.

New Delhi: Delhi chief minister Arvind Kejriwal with Dy CM Manish Sisodia and other ministers at the launch of the scheme for doorstep delivery of public services, in New Delhi, Monday, Sept 10, 2018. (PTI Photo) (PTI9_10_2018_000303B)(PTI)

Tuesday marks a year since the launch of the initiative. When launched by chief minister Arvind Kejriwal on September 10 last year, the scheme offered 40 services. Last month, on August 11, the government added 30 more services, taking the total number of services offered to 70.

Data provided by the administrative department, which is in charge of the initiative, stated that in the last one year, as many as 1,369,284 calls were received for doorstep delivery of services. Off the 13.69 lakh calls received, 216,054 calls were booked as service requests. Of the 2.16 lakh services that were booked, 99.5% of the services were delivered.

“The maximum demand has been from the revenue and transport departments. The gap between the total calls received and the number of services booked looks wide because we receive many queries and complaints as well. Such calls do not require further processing and hence, do not qualify as services booked,” an official in the department said.

The entire scheme currently involves the services of 125 mobile sahayaks (coordinators), 100 call centre executives, 11 supervisors, 35 dealing assistants and 25 coordinators. The services that are currently available to people under the doorstep delivery scheme include delivery of certificates, such as caste, income, domicile and marriage; getting a new water connection, driving licence, ration card, vehicle registration, duplicate registration certificates (RC) and change of address in RC.

Each service costs ₹50 and documents for the services would be collected from an applicant’s home by government agents or ‘mobile sahayaks’. Delivery of the final document is done either hand-to-hand or by post.

Data accessed by Hindustan Times revealed that residents who availed of the highest number of services were from Seemapuri (90%), Shahdara (87%), Vivek Vihar (87%) and Alipur (85%). The areas with the lowest requests of the approved services include Kanjhawala (29%), Mehrauli (43%), Punjabi Bagh (49%) and Defence Colony (55%).

So far, the maximum demand for the services pertains to services offered by the revenue department, which provides caste, income, domicile and marriage certificates, among others, to an applicant’s doorstep. Transport services, such as getting a driving licence or duplicate RC are the second most popular, under the existing scheme.

However, the government is yet to launch the third phase of the scheme. As per the plan, the government intends to increase the total services provided under the scheme to 100. “Thirty more services are under the process of being rolled out. We are fine-tuning the existing system. It has not been a completely smooth ride; we faced technical glitches and then had to change the entire software. Now, things are gradually getting streamlined,” said another official involved with the project.

Data with the government’s revenue department suggests that despite the introduction of the doorstep delivery scheme, the conventional way of getting marriage, income, and EWS certificates — by physically visiting the offices of subdivisional magistrates — continues to be popular among the applicants. About 80% of the applications received were through the direct window, but the doorstep delivery service is catching up gradually, said officials.