Put the citizen —not a maze of rules – first; learn to trust the citizens more and set higher standards for government services. As chief secretaries and administrators of states and union territories gathered in Delhi at a meeting convened by Cabinet Secretary BK Chaturvedi, the Centre asked the states to pull up their socks and put citizens at the centre of its governance initiatives.
The colonial system of administration put delivery of services to the public at the bottom of its priority list; there was a need to turn it upside down. There was consensus that the bureaucracy needed to make processes for public services like issuing caste certificates less cumbersome and shorter.
Chaturvedi asked fellow bureaucrats to walk the extra mile, raise standards to an extent that states actually begin competing with others to come on the top. They should share their success stories but be equally loud when they fail so that others do not have to make the mistakes all over again for their lesson. “It was an unusually frank discussion… exchange of ideas and experiences,” an official later said.