Chandigarh, Feb 9 Punjab Chief Minister Amarinder Singh on Tuesday virtually launched 56 services available at Sewa Kendras as he committed to bring in greater transparency in governance by taking the total number of citizen-centric services to 500 in three months.
With this launch, the number of services at the Sewa Kendras now stands at 383, with a daily footfall of 60,000, an official statement said.
The Chief Minister directed Chief Secretary Vini Mahajan to ensure that more services are included in the portfolio in a time-bound manner, with a call centre all set to be launched next month to enable citizens to lodge their grievances.
He also directed the Governance Reforms Department to tie up with the Department of Posts to immediately begin home delivery of documents as in the case of passports.
Blaming the previous Shiromani Akali Dal-led government for the unviable, poorly managed and underutilised Sewa Kendras, resulting in a huge drain on the state exchequer, Amarinder Singh said 2,144 Sewa Kendras were running with minimal footfall and poor delivery of services, while only 170 government services were available under the previous regime.
Besides, Rs 400 crore was recklessly spent on constructing these white elephants, which cost Rs 250 crore annually to the state to run them.
His government, on coming to power in 2017, decided at its very first cabinet meet to establish Unified Service Delivery Centres for online delivery of services, the Chief Minister said.
Apart from this, a decision was taken for amalgamation of all the existing centres such as Suvidha Centres, Saanjh Kendras, Fard Kendras, etc., with complete backend computerisation and digitisation to ensure public delivery system in a seamless manner.
( With inputs from IANS )
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