Over 2,000 'Sewa Kendra' set up in Punjab: Sukhbir

Punjab government today said it has established 2,147 unified service delivery centres in both rural and urban areas of the state for people to avail citizen-centric services near their homes.
At present, 78 services notified under Right to Service Act, 2011 are being delivered at the 'Sewa Kendras' .
Deputy Chief Minister Sukhbir Singh Badal said more services notified under the RTS Act, 2011 shall be delivered in a phased manner, adding the state government has started the service of collecting electricity bills at all Urban Sewa Kendras from September 26.
He said the objective of establishing these centres at every 1.5 to 2 km in urban areas and for every 4-5 villages in rural areas is to facilitate delivery of services to the citizens who were earlier required to travel 20-25 km and had to stand in long queues for availing basic services like caste certificate, birth and death services, social security pensions among others.

Sukhbir said the the centres will act as a one-stop government outlet for delivery of services to citizens in a time bound manner as laid down in the Right to Service Act, 2011 which was brought to bring the transparency and accountability in the whole service delivery eco-system.
The deputy chief minister said these 'Sewa Kendras' will be connected to various government offices through state-wide area network/Internet and the service request received at these centres shall be transferred electronically to the back office, that will process these requests and final output shall be delivered at the 'Sewa Kendra' counters.
This will reduce the interaction of people with various government offices and will lead to elimination of malpractices, corruption and will bring ease to common man to get government services in time.