Violence has declined in insurgency-affected states: CS

New Delhi, Apr 20 (UNI) Chief Secretaries of States today observed that violence had come down in insurgency-affected areas, including Jammu and Kashmir and North East but were concerned over increasing naxal insurgency in some states.

The Chief Secretaries, who discussed measures to streamline overall governance and improve the internal security situation, especially in states affected by naxalism and insurgency, at aday-long meeting, organised by the Department of Administrative Reforms and Public Grievances, felt that the internal security situation was ''quite normal.'' The Home Ministry made a presentation on the internal security situation in the country. Director Generals of Police of some states also participated.

They discussed issues pertaining to food security, Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan and National Rural Health Mission. It reviewed the implementation of the UPA government's flagship programmes like the Bharat Nirman and Rural Employment Guarantee scheme, besides discussing measures to be taken to improve the overall business climate in the country.

Inaugurating the Conference, Cabinet Secretary B K Chaturvedi said Public Service Delivery needed to be more citizen-centric and e-governance needed to be more rural-oriented.

Referring to the law and order situation, he said the security and law and order machinery needed to respond to the challenges posed by terrorists, naxalites and underground elements to uphold the rule of law and instil confidence in the people at large.

''Improve governance and police functioning to ensure that Rule of Law is enforced uniformly, equitably, so that every citizen can feel secure,'' he told the meeting.

While setting the agenda for the meeting, Mr Chaturvedi said the public service delivery could be improved only if corruption was minimised with transparency in the system, besides simplification of the existing procedures. ''Fighting corruption is a critical component of improving governance. Major overhaul of existing procedures, rules and regulations, coupled with use of technology can make a visible impact in this sphere.'' Stressing the importance of accountability, he said this could not be ensured without without fixed tenures of the officers at all levels.

In this context, Mr Chaturvedi cited the recent amendments in the All India Service Rules providing for stability of tenures.

Pointing out that the new rules had been circulated to state governments for notification, he asked the Chief Secretaries to issue the notification immediately so that improvement could be brought about in governance.

Saying that India was now on a higher economic growth path, Mr Chaturvedi emphasized the need for new economic ethos, sets of practices and simplification of procedures, which would need to be incorporated the best practices in providing clearances not only in the urban and rural areas, but also required for business.

''Cumbersome and complex procedures and formats needed to be replaced with simple, people friendly formats. The Civil Servants needed to take this as a challenge.'' Ms Rajni Razdan, Secretary in the Department of Administrative Reforms and Public Grievances and Pensions and Pensioners' Welfare, said our public services have to constantly upgrade their competence and acquire new skills to fully optimize the emerging opportunities.

''Governance in the changed scenario, has to be transparent, professionally managed, citizen-centric and sensitive to the changing needs of time.'' The conference serves the twin purposes of assessing the performance of different states over a period of time, as also, appraisal of the progress made in respect of various flagship programmes of different nodal Ministries of the Union Government.

Over a period of time, this has proved to be a useful platform to deliberate upon critical issues like law and order, education, health, employment and rural development.

''Not only this, such a conference proves useful in sorting out issues constraining speedy implementation of centrally sponsored and central sector schemes,'' sources said.

UNI