Sarthak Kanjilal
Port Blair, July 24: Something has gone terribly wrong with Administration’s experiment with Common Service Centres in Andaman and Nicobar Islands.
Instead of helping common man, now some Common Service Centres have started harassing them, leaving the ‘Mango-Man’ (Aam Admi) totally helpless.
There have been dozens of dozens of complaints against various CSCs, which have now started treating common man as cattle and are only focusing on earning only more and more profit. Sadly public does not know where to go and lodge a complaint.
Forget about common man, even cops are harassed and troubled by these CSCs. In a recent case a cop, Amit Talukder had applied for amendment of Family Identity Card (Change of Fair Price Shop) from Civil Supplies, as he was transferred to Middle Andaman from Port Blair.
According to reports, the application for the same was submitted on 05.06.2012 in eDweep Kendra of Aberdeen Bazaar, which is situated behind AR Emporium. As per slip the applicant was informed that before 03 July 2012 the new Family Identity Card will be handed over to the applicant.
But to the dismay of the applicant even by 03 July 2012 the FIC was not ready with the CSCs. As the applicant moved to Middle Andaman on Transfer his colleagues at Port Blair started visiting the CSC for the FIC and every time the person sitting in CSC gave different reasons for this delay.
Finally when someone visited the Civil Supplies Department directly it was learnt that on 16 June 2012, within 11 days of submitting application, the Department of Civil Supplies and Consumer Affair had prepared a new FIC and handed over to the staffs of the said CSC. But for reasons unknown the staffs of CSC were not handing over the FIC to the concerned party.
This drama continued for nearly 40 days. The owner and all other staffs had different different excuses for this delay. Finally when Andaman Sheekha reporter visited the CSC on 23rd July 2012 to know the reason behind the delay on 24th July morning the staffs of the CSC suddenly found the FIC and handed over the FIC to the concerned party.
This shows that how carelessly the CSC operators are dealing with general public of these Islands. Many suspect that the CSC staffs were actually waiting that the concern party will offer some bribe to get the work done very fast, which did not happened and hence this resulted in this delay.
Surprisingly, Mr. Utpal Sharma, who is incharge of these CSCs was also not reachable for comment.
The Lt. Governor, Chief Secretary and the Secretary IT must look into this matter and take action against those CSC owners who are harassing general public to earn easy money.
This is the downside of outsourcing Govt work. The Directorate of CS&CA have issued public notice that Ration Card related matters will be dealt only through CSC’s (where CSC is available) without testing efficacy of CSC’s in delivery of services to citizens.
It is true when such important matters are outsourced to private parties who are there to make profit, illegal gratification is bound to take centre stage.