BIRENDRANAGAR, Nov 9: Badrinath Gaire has recently arrived here at the District Administration Office in Rukum (West) as the Chief District Officer (CDO). He prepared a survey form to study the level of citizen satisfaction toward the services delivered by the office.

“The main objective of the survey is to get a clear picture of the citizens’ grievances and handle them accordingly,” CDO Gaire added. The questionnaire consisting eight questions, seeks service seekers’ responses to the treatment from the civil servants, time taken, procedures and their expectations from the office.

The locals, however, suspect whether the CDO will be successful in his efforts. They claim that there are a lot of anomalies in the office which are obstructing the service delivery process and the service seekers have to suffer because of that.  Although the CDO is trying something new, the performance of the staff is yet to change, they said

Sangita Oli, who had applied for a copy of her citizenship certificate at the DAO, had to wait for the whole day to get her document finalized.

“The only thing remaining was the signature from the officer. However, he was sitting in the sun. He told me to come after an hour,” she said. “He was still outside in the sun when I reached there later.” She added that her document was finally verified after she burst in anger.

Sluggish service delivery has been troubling the service seekers, complains Bipen Oli who also lamented his sufferings and hassles while applying for passport at the same office. “The process is lengthy and time-consuming. In fact, it’s troubling the citizens,” he grumbled while talking to Republica on Monday.

“I was first sent to deposit the fees at Nepal Bank Limited. The bank, however, wasn’t ready to deposit the money directly and asked me to go to the District Treasury Controller’s Office for the same.” He complained that he had to waste his time moving door to door just to deposit the amount. “I had planned to get done my work at the district administration office and go for other work in the district headquarters; however, the whole day was spent just by roaming here and there.”

Nainsingh Bohora, who suffered from the lengthy process while getting his passport renewed, took a photo of the office flooded with service seekers and empty chairs inside the office and posted it on social media.

Pratibha Poudel, on the other hand, complained of not getting information despite filing an application as per the right to information which is enshrined in the constitution. “I went to the CDO with my application,” she said, adding that the CDO did not even register her application.

CDO Gaire, however, dismissed the allegation and claimed that he never left any task incomplete. “It is, however, true that we couldn’t get the work done in time as there is a huge number of service seekers,” he said. He claimed that they have extended the working hours to 5 PM though the office is to close at 4 PM. “To address the concerns of the citizens, I am conducting the survey.”

According to the DAO, it serves nearly 300 service seekers a day.  

 
• service_delivery
 
• Nepal
 
• government
 
• Rukum