Hi Sir,
Thanks for initiating such a unique platform. My idea is for
‘accessing the digital services and technologies’ and how to make the change
happen for good.
Problem:
1) Physical/mental
and economical harassment are always involved when dealing with most of the
government departments/office.
2) There
is huge corruption in almost all department and there is no ‘tracking/complaining’
system exists. Complaining in same department by approaching the next level senior
is not a feasible solution as most of the times department has good terms among
them (or they themselves may have share in corruption).
3) As
of now, our government department process are not transparent. There are very
few tracking system and ‘aam admi’ can’t raise much voice against the existing
working style and they don’t get proper information.
4) Aam
admi has no idea of ‘clear rules and regulation’ and whatever is dictated by
concerned department, becomes the rule. This system is prone to misusage and
misguide the aam-admi.
I see other views on this topic, but lets’ go step by step.
First of all, we need to make the information available. Educating people or
say providing terminal to every municipal is not a bad idea but needs lot of
effort, investment and most importantly maintains to keep such things functional.
In our country where even a ‘automatic railway platform ticket m/c’ is not maintained
well (and I am talking about well-developed cities like Bangalore and Delhi), it’s
difficult to see that such things can be maintained well at municipality level.
So, what’s the first solution?
1) Provide
the information at some centralized website/cloud/server. Advertise its purpose
and potential usage on TV and with other media.
2) Educate
the people on the same website on how to access the information.
3) Make
sure accessing the information is very easy. Make sure logging issues in accessing
information is also very easy.
4) Make
it available via public internet. Let the people try to access the information on
their own expense on either mobile/cyber café/office internet/home internet or
from friends/neighbors.
5) As
the ‘provided information’ is centralized, maintain it well (it means maintain
the website function always UP and FAST). Let the people believe that ‘this
system always works’. Faith is very important specially during initial stage of
such programs.
6) Let
the people upload what they see/feel on the same website even @ municipality/small
government branch office level with proofs like ‘photos/videos’ (need more thought
on proofs, I have few but they are more expensive. With the help of mobile now
a days, it’s very easy to click PIC or generate video of incident).
7) Create
a centralized monitoring team. Let them validate/verify the uploaded issues
from public all over the place and generate a ‘automatic notice’ asking ‘give
reasons’ to those government branch offices while keeping the complainer
informed but hidden (if possible) from concerned department.
a. Hiding
the identity (if possible) will make sure that people will not be afraid of complaining
generic issues as they are anonymous to the department. There could be issues
which were individual specific and for that it might be necessary to expose the
identity of the person (which should be OK as the issues is specific to that identity).
b. Sending
notice to department should made significant changes in the behavior of the
staff as now they are ‘questionable for their act’. This is the biggest things
missing in our system that government servants are not questionable by ‘aam
admi’ if they are not doing their duty properly.
c. As
it’s a ‘centralized team’ which is monitoring the complains, chances of biased
ness is very less as the department and monitoring comity will not have any
link.
d. The
term ‘notice’ can be further discussed. In my opinion, government should prefer
to raise a ‘bug’ for all such complaints (online), assign those bugs to ‘department
in question’, and it’s department duty to keep a track of ‘issues logged’
against their department. Department should be able to provide the reasoning
directly on logged bug (online and evident as well if possible). Complainer
should be able to see them (so give ‘bug id’ to complainer as well), he should
be able to do ‘cross arguments’ with concern department (with evident if
needed). Let the ‘monitoring staff’ should be silently see their conversation
till both provided all ‘pending information’ and ‘cross response’ to each other
query (may be multiple rounds). The biggest advantage of such approach is that
now ‘department and individual aam admi are discussing one-to-one, monitoring
team is not busy in their case, and in-the-last based on their discussion and evident
provided during discussion, they can easily reach to a conclusion of ‘which
party is legally correct’ or if ‘further evidents are required’.
e. As
it’s all happening online (no paper work or transfer of real document in 90%
cases (if any party object the truthiness of uploaded Xerox proof, it might be
important to show the real proof but in that case one party will lose immediately
if found guilty)), both parties should be reply with-in a given time period, absence
of that will considered as advantage of ‘up-to-date’ party. There might be some
relaxation policies which can be further discussed.
What all it takes to make it happen:
1) A
online server provided by government (like mygov) where people can upload their
issues and can generate the complaint number and discuss with concern
department directly in the observation of ‘monitoring department’.
2) Individuals
has to use internet on their personal expense (cyber café/personal gadgets) .
But see, it’s very cheap by even travelling to concerned department. Mobiles
are available everywhere, even in villages. Website should be light weight so
that It can function in 2G network so that anyone can use it.
3) The
main officer of all government branch department can be held responsible to
keep a track of all the ‘bugs’ logged against his department. His duty could be
to reach out the real officer (as they work in same office or phone), and
provide the response. May be every department can take a normal internet connection
(from private companies like airtel/vodaphone etc) with monthly 200/- (two hundred
rupees plan, as of now it’s avilable), with a basic 2G/3G plan. Use a wifi
modem, so that everyone on office can use their mobile to access the government
website for bugs. Make the firewall rule on ‘router modem’ that people can
access only ‘bug website’ to stop any misuse at all.
I understand their might be many questions/challenges/difficulties
in executing this plan, but I am open to discuss and provide further deep
solutions if required. It’s just a basic idea and can be further refined.
Regards,
Tapesh Maheshwari.
