Bangalore: The State government has come out with a ‘corporate engagement model’ in an effort to take the Sakaala services to the people through corporate social responsibility initiatives.
Speaking at an interaction organised by the Federation of Karnataka Chambers of Commerce and Industry (FKCCI) here on Friday, Shalini Rajneesh, Secretary, Department of Personnel and Administrative Reforms and Mission Director, Sakaala, appealed to the industries to involve themselves in spreading awareness about the Sakaala (guarantee of time-bound services to citizens) scheme across the State.
The scheme offers as many as 478 services of various government departments.
She said industries and business houses could become a part of it by taking up awareness campaigns, becoming ‘Sakaala Mitras’, or helping augment IT applications. She said they could also create help desks in public places, set up rural cyber cafes and make suggestions for simplifying governance and service delivery.
She said there was a provision for the public to make suggestions online on the Sakaala portal. Many innovative suggestions had been made, she pointed out.
Rajneesh said a survey of the International Market Research Bureau in five districts of Karnataka had found that 99 per cent of the people were happy with the services.
The level of awareness about the scheme was 70 per cent, she said. The next challenge was simplification of the scheme and reaching the unaware 30 per cent.
As many as 46 million applications have been received under Sakaala so far, for a total of 478 services (150 among them online) in 47 departments.
Most applications were from the Revenue, Transport, Commercial Tax and Food and Civil Supplies departments, besides the Bruhat Bangalore Mahanagara Palike.
Rajneesh said the departments were not able to provide time-bound services to 385 applications, and action had been initiated against officials responsible for the delay. The aggrieved applicants have been given compensation. She said an inquiry was on against 4,000 officials for delaying the services, and a portion of their salary had been deducted to pay compensation.
