Over two lakh cases from different departments of the government lie overdue under the Sakaala Services Mission in Karnataka.
Bengaluru: Over 2 lakh cases are pending under the Sakala Services Mission in the state. These cases belong to 98 different departments which come under the Sakala mission. Sakala Act is a monitoring body to provide a track of all the services provided and to be provided by different departments under the government.
Abhilash Gowda, State IT Consultant, Dept. of Public and Administrative Reforms said, “On a monthly basis we do the analysis. We will not deliver the service; the main department will deliver the service. We are one monitoring body that keeps a track of the services provided and pending. Services like seed license, migration certificates etc.”
A total of 5,54,76,998 service applications were filed in all the 98 departments out of which 2,83,160 are overdue and 37,78,574 have been rejected because of inappropriate eligibility criteria or other technical issues. Out of the overdue cases, 131068 are from the Revenue Department.
Shekhara, Deputy Director to government, Education Department (Primary and Secondary) said, “There will be issue of PU certificate, PU card, NOC and some other particular services. Some applications did not get approve(d) because there is a problem with documents or eligibility.”
Gowda also told that different departments will deal with different services that come under them. He added, “For example, if we talk about Agriculture Department, it will deal with services like seed license, permissions, etc.”
Suresh, a teacher from Bagalkot region has been waiting for his pension under the New Pension Scheme for the past 10 months. He said, “I applied for New Pension Scheme. It has been 10 months now but nothing has happened. I have come to seek (an) answer to that. I am from Bagalkot. I have to travel from there every time.”
The Sakala Services Act was passed by the Karnataka government in 2011 which was later amended in 2014. The Sakala team monitors the total number of applications for services in different departments and records how many of it has been provided within the stipulated time frame. According to the Act, if the designated officer fails to provide service to the citizens in the stipulated time, they are liable to pay the compensatory cost to the citizen. The compensatory cost will be at the rate of twenty rupees per day for the period of delay subject to maximum of five hundred rupees per application.
