On Tuesday, while reviewing the establishment of Raabta – CM’s Public Services and Outreach Office, a single-window interface aimed at enhancing government-citizen interaction, Jammu and Kashmir Chief Minister Omar Abdullah underlined the importance of maintaining rapport with the public asserting that his outreach office – Raabta — will serve as a bridge between the government and the people. It may be recalled here that soon after taking his office as CM, Omar Abdullah, in a bid to connect with public ordered the establishment of Raabta ensuring timely delivery of public services and enhancing public participation in governance. The platform is expected to enhance public participation, ensure a responsive government, and enable the timely delivery of public services.
It indeed is a very good initiative and if run professionally and seriously will be a great help with connecting public with the administrative system besides redressing the grievances without delay. The people of Jammu and Kashmir, in recently held Assembly elections, participated and voted in large numbers. They have been craving for a government of their own for more than six years and thus enthusiastically voted to elect their representatives, those who they know and vice versa; those who they expect would listen to them and address their issues and problems and; those who would be approachable all the time. In this backdrop the establishment of Raabta is a people centric initiative and will go a long way in bridging the gap between the system and the public. As the Chief Minister has directed officials to integrate Raabta with JK Samadhan, an existing grievance redressal platform, the step will help create a unified and comprehensive grievance redressal system.
Democracy is all about connect with the people and making the people the main stake holders in the decision making. Regrettably the system here is not so public friendly and those holding the administrative reins hardly connect with the people. SDMs, SDPOs, Tehsildars, BDOs, SHOs even Patwaris and officers of PHE, PDD and other departments treat commoners as their subjects and hardly listen to them. This arrogance of being on government pay-rolls has distanced public from the system and this distancing has already done huge damage to Jammu and Kashmir politically, economically as well as socially. In this backdrop, tasking initiatives like Raabta is a must and should be made operational without any further delay.
However, the most important factor remains the follow-up. Sometime back a great initiative “Back to Village” were taken by the administration wherein government was supposed to go to the door steps of the people to understand and appreciate their issues and problems and redress the same. The initiative too was appreciated by one and all. But, at the end of the day, it proved to be just a photo-op and media campaign as in most of the cases there was no proper follow up. Let it be a bit different this time roumd. Let the Chief Minister ensure that all the grievances and problems brought to this newly established office are properly scrutinized, and acted upon. The office should be run by apolitical professionals and should have broader mandate to raise the flagged issues on every governmental level. Publication of a monthly progress report of this office would encourage more and more people to come forward and connect.