 Hello everyone, my name is Deeksha Jain and I secured the 22nd rank in civil services examination 2018. In this video, I will be talking about citizen starter. Citizen starter is an instrument through which the government endeavors to improve its services to the citizens of the country. And here, the citizen starter basically has two dimensions. One is the quality dimension that this quality of the services, the government services is improved. And the second is the temporal dimension that the service the government is providing should happen in a time-bound manner. So, how does a citizen starter do this? First, it builds institutional capacity to provide the service in a time-bound manner. Number two, it focuses on behavioral change. Behavioral change of the staff, it focuses on improving courteousness in giving a mind of service to the people the cutting-edge bureaucracy which is working in public service. So, the concept of citizen starter was taken in 1990, was started first in 1991 UK and India has taken it from there. So, if we were to look in detail at the purpose of what a citizen starter does is that first is clarity. It gives clarity with respect to the expectations of the citizens about the quality type of the service the time that it will take. So, what essentially citizen starter looks like is a grid or a board which is displayed to the public in any organization. It has all the information with respect to if you want to get this work done then whom you have to approach, how much time it will take. If there is a problem then how can you file, lodge your complaint. So, it has that information in a transparent manner. Number two, it enables the government to become more responsive. Then it enhances stakeholder participation. One of the major features of citizen starter is to get feedback from the beneficiaries of the government and to include that and make sure that the service is better. Another one is strengthening accountability because the citizen starter clarifies that which person in the organization should be providing with service then the accountability of that service not having been provided becomes very clear and so it ensures accountability which at the same time increases the efficiency of the organization. It also improves the credibility and the image of the government. It improves the trust of people in the government that yes the government can provide good services and the government is meant for the citizens. It creates a service orientation as opposed to a master orientation among the bureaucracy. So, that is also one of the larger goals of citizen starter. So, Indian citizen starter programmers adopted by department of administrative reforms and public grievances and it is expected to incorporate a vision and vision statement that what is the vision of the organization, details of what the organization does, details of the clients served, details of grievance address and mechanisms, services provided, details of compensation in case of delay or in case the service has not been provided and expectation from the client as well. That is what are the documents that the client has to bring, what are the certain basic expectations that the client has to make sure of so that they can avail the service so they can get their work done. At the central level it is not enforceable, but now many banks and many institutions are actually in fact adopting the citizen starter. There have been certain problems with the citizen starter program in India. People are not aware of it, so lack of awareness. There has been bureaucratic resistance, lack of incentivization of bureaucracy to adopt the more responsive method. Citizens consultation has been merely on paper and citizen starter has not been functioning the way it actually should be on ground. There has also been an understanding that it is a one size fits all approach. It is not malleable to local conditions and requirements of the organization. Review and update of the charter has also many places the charter has been placed, but it has not been reviewed or updated, so basically rendering it ineffective. So, there have been these problems with the citizen starter. So, at the same time the department of the DARPG's model citizen starter has also been provided which is called the Savutam model. Now, what does the Savutam model in brief have? It has a chartmark scheme which results in citizen's empowerment because it marks it you know exactly who is going to do what and where. There is a grievance citizen machinery, it ensures citizen satisfaction and there is a service delivery mechanism that increases the capacity and capability of the institution to serve the people. So, Savutam is a model charter which can be taken up by any organization and implemented properly and citizen starter is one of the ways in which bureaucracy can improve its efficiency and public service on the whole can be improved and trust in the government can be built. So, that will be all. Thank you so much. Subscribe to our channel and click on the bell icon to get latest updates on upcoming videos.