Lowest Revenue Officer fined under Right to Public Service Act: But is it the Solution?

Subhas Chandra Pattanayak

Thirty days (excluding the period taken for disposal of objections, if any) is fixed for issuance of caste certificates by the Tahsildars, under the Orissa Right to Public Service Act, 2012. The Act provides for punishment in case of delay.

Tahsildar of Bolangir has been fined by the district Collector on allegation against non-adherence to this time tag in case of nine applicants.

This is the first such penalty awarded under the Act, when in Bolangir, as many as 14,984 applications under the Act are pending by today.

When Balasore has the highest number of 138,705 complaints pending under the Act by now, the second highest numbers of 116,344 complaints are pending in the district of Mayurbhanj. Similarly, in Dhenkanal the numbers of pending complaints are 80,772; in Sundargarh -60,429; in Cuttack-52,807; in Bhadrak – 49,926; in Nayagarh – 38,922; in Jajpur- 30,728; in Koraput – 25,283; in Puri – 25,050; in Jagatsinghpur – 22, 097; in Subarnapur – 22,082; in Ganjam – 17, 300; in Rayagada – 16,891, in Kandhamal – 15,642; in Kendrapada – 14,396; in Gajapati- 7,176; in Nawarangpur- 5,781; in Anugul – 5,007; in Nuapada – 4,708; in Bargarh – 3,970; in Boudh – 3,182; in Deogarh – 2,778; in Malkangiri – 2,627. In Jharsuguda there are also 1,319 complains pending by now against contravention of the ORPS Act.

When the Act was promulgated we we had observed:

“Despite this law, there shall be delay in delivery of services. All the government offices are presently suffering from severe shortage of staff. When workload is highly increasing, the executive is shrinking in size. Sanctioned posts are not being filled up. Recruitment is rare. Without adequate staff, it would be impossible for the severely minified executive to comply with all the requisitions in a fixed time. Threatened with legal prosecution and penalty for delay in complying with requisitions, the staff is bound to feel demoralized.

In fact, it will shift the responsibility for misrule from the politicians in control of administration to the lower executive and give boost to a climate of litigation against the employees. So, it will help the compradors in power to escape public wrath for their misrule, when attention of the suffering public will stay focused on inability of lower executive to deliver good governance.

Therefore, instead of acting beneficial, this Act will cause a lot of harm to administration. Firstly, it will convince the people that the employees are means of misrule, and secondly, the provision for penalty in this Act, will keep the employees constantly intimidated”.

And, the Bolangir district Collector’s order, even if it is just and proper, needs cogitation in this light.

For clear perception of the syndrome, our breaking observation may be perused at:

The Orissa Public Services Act, 2012 will demoralize the minified Executive and create Chaos.