The Citizen’s Right To Services (RTS) law awareness campaign of Lok Satta party was held at Mylapore on Saturday.
Party State leader Jegadeeswaran and treasurer Ashok led the campaign by distributing handbills to the public.
Speaking on the sidelines of the event, Ashok said that the campaign was in continuation of the series of programmes organised by the party following the launch of the programme by party founder Jayaprakash Narayanan.
“The common man cannot avail of the basic services rendered by the State and Central government offices since there is corruption everywhere,” he said.
“Though officials are duty-bound to provide the services within a set timeframe, they are least bothered about meeting the deadline with respect to the delivery of services sought,” he added.
“Once the right to service law is enacted, officials failing to meet the deadline of service delivery on valid applications will be penalised with a fine. The fine will be paid to the applicant as compensation and the required service will be delivered immediately,” he observed.
“There are about 15 States including Kerala, Bihar, and Punjab where this law has been in force. We are now creating awareness among the public to raise their voice to this cause. We are also planning to approach the political parties. Even MLAs and MPs are being flooded with petitions related to basic services. This will give legislators more time to look after the development of the constituency rather than pondering over the petitions,” he noted.
“The law will make the officials accountable for the delay and will also provide immediate remedy for the applicant,” he quipped.
The party also conducted an advisory camp on availing basic services including birth certificates, driving licences, passports and other documents on time and measures including the use of RTI to speed up the process of the respective applications.