Bihar’s showpiece law faces its first test

The price for refusing the offer is a long wait. In the queue,middlemen ahead of them will be carrying 50-100 forms each. Jumping the queue is not a listed offence under the Act either.

The racket goes beyond the Patna collectorate. The Bihar Prashnik Mission Sudhar Society (BPMSS),a nodal body set up under the GAD (general administration department) to monitor the implementation of the RTPS Act,has been flooded with such complaints from all over the state. Near the Phulwarisharif block office,for instance,middlemen have struck a deal with vendors who have set up stalls to sell forms. These are available online but not everyone downloads them. The charge on clients here,mostly from suburban and rural Patna,is between Rs 100 and Rs 500.

At the Danapur block office,government staff say they are threatened by middlemen who want their applications given priority. The Danapur sub-divisional officer has been asked to identify such elements and report to the Patna district magistrate. There have been reports about bullying from Motihari,Begusarai,Bhagalpur and Nawada,too,and about deals being struck between lower-rung government officials with middlemen to prioritise their applications.

This week,raids were conducted simultaneously at collectorates and block offices in 11 districts,including Patna,Muzaffarpur and Begusarai,and dozens of middlemen were caught,allegedly red-handed.

The allegations and raids have come at a time when Chief Minister Nitish Kumar is preparing for his Seva Yatra ,nearly concurrently with L K Advani’s anti-corruption yatra. Nitish’s stated objective is to assess how far the RTPS Act has succeeded. “The very objective of the yatra is to learn directly the kinds of complaints people have about RTPS,” Nitish said. “We may amend the Act to make it more people-friendly.”

As an innovation,it has been welcomed by citizens,with over 24 lakh applications received and over 11 lakh of them disposed of till the beginning of this week. To tackle the racket that has come up,the GAD is planning to bring out a circular saying that an applicant can submit only three forms in a day. Another corrective measure being planned is the introduction of a paid-for tatkal service,on the lines of that in effect in the railways,which would discourage applicants from approaching a middleman.

GAD principal secretary Deepak Kumar said the government would soon make the services online. “The only problem in this is in ascertaining the veracity of scanned documents submitted along with the application forms. Plus,we need a higher storage capacity in our computers. But we will sort this out and start online services from October,” he said.

He said the BPMSS had been monitoring various complaints and and will come out with corrective measures,mostly using technology. “We are considering making the application process less cumbersome. We may also reduce the time to render services.”

Among the steps already taken are advertisements to create awareness about the Act,and SMS updates on the status of an application,even if rejected. The GAD principal secretary said no one has complained yet about services delivered. One problem,he conceded,is that in districts bordering Nepal,poor Internet connectivity is delaying disposal of applications.