Badal for making administration response towards public

Chandigarh, Apr 24 (UNI) Punjab Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal today called for a qualitative shift in the administrative reforms to make these more responsive and public-oriented in order to address the social maladies of poverty and unemployment, besides eradicating corruption from the government machinery.

Taking part in the deliberations with the members of 2nd Administrative Reforms Commission (ARC) led by its member, Mr V Ramachandran, the Chief Minister said that the conventional administrative set up was no more relevant in the present context and emphasised the need to bring administrative reforms with the public interface to instill confidence of the general masses in the state administration.

Citing an example of 'Sangat Darshan', he said that this concept of effective and efficient grievance redressal mechanism could be replicated in other states also to strengthen the relationship between the government and masses. He said that this novel method of hearing and solving the problems on the spot had minimised the communication gap between the people and the bureaucracy.

The Chief Minister asked the ARC to give recommendations to stamp out corruption from the government machinery which had almost plagued our society. He said that corrupt practices prevalent at the cutting edge must be curbed with a heavy hand coupled with strong political will.

He also suggested that the Commission must look into the ways and means to give more autonomy to the states so as to ensure better functioning and proper coordination with the Centre in the implementation of various development schemes and programmes.

Mr Badal underlined the need to give greater freedom in designing development and welfare schemes and asked for funds to be transferred to the states under the Centrally Sponsored development and welfare schemes. He also asked the ARC to carry out field visits to border areas in order to assess the ground realities.

MORE UNI HS JS1841