Citizens Charters

Case study: RTO hyderabad

The main objective of the exercise to issue the Citizen's Charter of an
organisation is to improve the quality of public services. This is
done by letting people know the mandate of the concerned Ministry/
Department/ Organisation, how one can get in touch with its officials,
what to expect by way of services and how to seek a remedy if
something goes wrong. The Citizen's Charter does not by itself create
new legal rights, but it surely helps in enforcing existing rights.
a written commitment by an agency to del iver outputs or
services according to speci fied standards of qualIty
Six principles of the Ci tizens Charter movement as original ly
framed, were:
1) Qual i ty :Improving the qual i ty of services;
2) Choice : Wherever possible;
3) Standards :Speci fy what to expect and how to act i f
standards are not met;
4) Value: For the taxpayers money;
5) Accountability :I ndividuals and Organisations; and
6) Transparency: Rules/ Procedures/ Schemes/Grievances. CC is a
tool to increases transparency and accountability

A s per the report of evaluation carried out by the DARPG , major

findings were :(i )
I n majority of cases Charters were not formulated
through a consultative process;
(i i )
By and large service providers are not
familiar with the philosophy, goals and main features of the
Charter;
(i i i )
INAdequate publicity to the Charters
had not been given in any of the Departments evaluated. I n

most Departments, the Charters are only in the ini tial or middle
stage of implementation;
(iv)
No funds have been specifically earmarked for
awareness generation of Citizens Charter or for orientation of staff
on various components of the Charter;
Key recommendations, inter alia, include :(i ) need for citizens and staff to be consulted at every stage of
formulation of the Charter,
(i i ) orientation of staff about the salient features and goals/
objectives of the Charter; vision and mission statement of the
department; and ski l ls such as team building, problem solving,
handling of grievances and communication ski l ls, (i i i ) need for
creation of database on consumer grievances and redress,
(iv) need for wider publicity of the Charter

Citizens charter contains

1. Vision and mission of the org
2. List of services provided and their quality standards
including time frame
3. Grievance redressal mechanism
4. Details and expectations(obligations) from the clients

1) Choice
2) Value for money
3) Courtesy
4) Accountability

Need to put in place a system to give

grievance)

feedback (not just

Process review and restructuring to improve implementation of CC

India should also start an award like charter mark scheme of UK