In the competitive anxiety within the political class to arrogate the legacy of Mahatma Gandhi on his 150th birth anniversary, it was left to Mr Naveen Patnaik, Chief Minister of Odisha, to walk the talk.
Wednesday’s inauguration of Mo Sarkar on the occasion of Gandhi Jayanti has been a signal initiative when the general grandstanding has been restricted to padayatras and other ceremonial events that are geared to reap political mileage.
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The Mahatma would have baulked at such populist expressions of enlightened self-interest. In a novel initiative, Mr Patnaik is reported to have made random phone calls to several people across seven districts for feedback on treatment in government hospitals and the services at police stations.
The phone numbers were collected at random from the Mo Sarkar portal.
This initiative on Gandhi Jayanti is more tangible than a neighbouring Chief Minister’s verbal demarche to doctors on the issue of fees and the trumpeting of the police brass over what they call SOP (Standard Operating Procedure).
Neither initiative in West Bengal has been able to avert mayhem and strikes by doctors in state hospitals, not to forget the assault on policemen at police stations, as at Tollygunge recently.
It is more than obvious that Mr Patnaik has reached out to the targeted beneficiaries of public policy by personally interacting with a cross-section of patients who seek care and cure in government hospitals.
The Mo Sarkar initiative has been introduced at all police stations in Odisha, along with the hospitals in 21 district headquarters. Also covered are three government-run medical colleges in Cuttack, Berhampore, and Sambalpur. The programme will be effective across the state by 30 October.
This sure is a grassroots approach that underlines the certitudes of public policy. Chiefly, the objective of the programme is to ensure service with dignity to people who visit government offices for a variety of purposes.
As often as not, the experience of interacting with public servants can be direly frustrating.
The short point being that the objective of the occasional visit is seldom fulfilled, if at all.
The Patnaik dispensation intends to get back to those whose phone numbers have been collected in order to improve the system of governance. The feedback will also focus on the behaviour and professionalism of government servants. In a follow-through to Mr Patnaik’s initiative of calling up people at random, senior bureaucrats in Bhubaneswar have been directed to dial numbers at random to collect feedback.
Public servants will be evaluated in terms of “good” and “bad” on the basis of the feedback, and promotions and corrective action will follow accordingly.
Odisha has shown the way with a profound tribute to the memory of Mahatma Gandhi.
