Daily Post 1553
CITIZEN’S FEEDBACK
In the services industry or wherever product / delivery model operates, user feedback is most critical to that industry. It is not known why the feedback model found difficult to enter the NGO sector. They have been projecting their feedback in their own way. Might be their beneficiaries have still to become a user / customer or citizen. Even beyond the multitude of NGOs which the country is dotted with, the bigger service provider in the country are the Governments, reaching out to the last person and are legally mandated to do so. They cannot decide the service and its nature, they have to provide it all and all the time.
In this massive juggernaut called the government, the citizen is the customer. But for the battle cry of good governance and responsive governance since the time of Independence, have we evolved a system of feedback. Individual feedback for every service provided. Citizens are the users and the customers of the legally mandated services, they cannot be treated like either the social media users or the NGO type beneficiaries. It is what they and other citizens have paid for and what they have authorised the governments to do. The citizens should govern the governments is how democracies are bound to exist. They are supreme.
The elections are made out to be the democratic mass feedback on everything good, bad and the ugly the concerned governments have done for five years. It also gives a carte blanche for whichever pary comes to power in the ensuing election. The presumption, certification and authority emanating out of it has made the executive, political or otherwise beyond day to day command and control. What is not measured is not done, applies to governance, as to anybody else. The hapless citizen does not even know the schemes. If performance of the officers, political representatives and political executive were decided on the sum total of all citizens feedback; complaint, products, services, benefits, direct transfers, what would have been the story?
That too of every individual for every single interaction with the government. Will it not be true democracy? The pre-eminence of the sovereign citizens can only mean pre-eminence of democracy. Rest nothing matters to the masses. Think of the three major delivery items of any democratic government; public health, public education and public security, what would be your feedback on your individual interactions on these govt. services? The political and the bureaucratic world have been able to insulate themselves from the nitty gritty of delivery. Only feedback and forced response / action on it can transform this juggernaut into a thriving and robust delivery machine.
THE GOVERNMENTS HAVE THE POTENTIAL TO BECOME A GAME CHANGING SERVICE ORGANISATION.
Sanjay Sahay