STATE TIMES NEWS
New Delhi: Union minister Jitendra Singh Thursday said the government’s focus is on the capacity building of officers still having 25 years of service as they can devote their full energy and capability to the making of India at 2047.
Addressing the inaugural session of 16th Civil Services Day at Vigyan Bhawan here, he said that the government believes in the mantra of “maximum governance, minimum government” given by Prime Minister Narendra Modi where the government acts as a facilitator and not an intimidator.
“When we talk of a government like this it means increased transparency, increased accountability and most of all increased citizen participation,” said the minister of state for personnel.
He said the officers who are in the age group of 30s should be on “our main focus for capacity building” as they have another 25 years to put in before India celebrates its 100 years of independence and they are the ones blessed with the privilege to be the “architects” of India at 2047.
“Our responsibility today will be to contribute to the capacity building of this group of officers. If we are able to do that effectively, we will be doing justice to India at 2047,” the minister said. The theme for the two-day Civil Services Day 2023 is ‘Viksit Bharat: Empowering Citizens and Reaching the Last Mile’.
Singh said that Prime Minister Modi would be addressing the nation on the Civil Services Day and conferring the Prime Minister’s Awards for Excellence in Public Administration 2022, on Friday.
The prime minister has devoted considerable time and energy to personally restructure the scheme to ensure that high meritocracy is rewarded, evaluation processes are robust and participation is inclusive, he said.
As many as 15 awardees from 2,520 nominations would be receiving the awards on Friday, he said.
Singh said the 16th Civil Services Day events reflect the vision of Prime Minister Modi outlined by him from the ramparts of the Red Fort in his Independence Day address when he gave a clarion call as the nation stepped into “Amrit Kaal”.
“The saturation approach envisaged in implementation of priority programmes in the Amrit Kaal period can only be achieved when the nation’s civil service pursues this objective with a seriousness of purpose, steely determination and a deep sense of commitment to the national cause,” the minister said.
Quoting Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel’s address to the very first group of civil servants in 1948 that “Your predecessors were brought up in the traditions in which they kept themselves aloof from the common run of the people. It will be your bounden duty to treat the common men in India as your own”, Singh said much has changed with the passage of time.
The minister said that citizen participation has already happened and one of the most striking examples of it is the SVAMITVA scheme.
It is a reformative step towards establishment of clear ownership of property in rural inhabited (Abadi) areas, by mapping of land parcels using drone technology and providing record of rights’ to village household owners with issuance of legal ownership cards (property cards/title deeds) to the property owners, a statement issued by the Personnel Ministry said.
One of the benchmarks of transparency, accountability is the grievance, Singh said.
“When we introduced Centralised Public Grievance Redress and Monitoring System (CPGRAMS), in 2014 we just had about 2 lakhs grievances being filed across the country every year. Today we have about 20 lakhs, 10 times more. This is the result of increased trust of people in grievance redressal.
“We were prompt, worked very hard. We ensured 95-100% disposal every week. Now, we have institutionalised a mechanism wherein after the redressal of complaint, one of our officers calls up the complainant to find out the level of satisfaction,” he added. CPGRAMS is an online system that allows citizens to raise public grievances against government departments. Singh complimented the Department of Administrative Reforms and Public Grievances (DARPG) team for the successful Swachhata 2.0 campaign.
“For the first time, the realisation dawned in the society that swachhata could also fetch you money. The swachhata campaign was conducted in 1.01 lakh office sites, 89.85 lakh square feet of space was freed and Rs 370.83 crore revenue earned from disposal of office scrap including the electronic scrap,” he said.
Cabinet Secretary Rajiv Gauba and DARPG Secretary V Srinivas, among others, were present in Thursday’s event presided over by Vice President Jagdeep Dhankhar.