Front Office Management for People Friendly Local Governance: The Dream and Reality

Abstract

The central and state governments were made a heap of efforts for good governance and to improve the quality of service delivery to citizens in particular, for attaining the dreams of Gandhi; Gram Swaraj and Gramn Su-raj. The 73rd and 74th Constitutional Amendments, the modernization of Governance Programme (MGP), Right to Information Act, Citizen Charter, Right to Service bill, Social Audit, the proposed Right to Grievance Redressal Bill etc. are some among them. But the efforts for effective service delivery are not yet fruitful because of a myriad of reasons. It is the duty of each and every government to create a flawless service delivery mechanism to provide services to citizens with maximum satisfaction. The ninth to twelfth Five Year Plans strictly direct to improve quality of service delivery and good governance in Government, in general, and Local Self Government Institutions in particular. Several initiatives were taken and the Front Office Management (FoM) in GramaPanchayats is the latest in this genre in Kerala. The Fom is a change management initiative with focus on citizens’ satisfaction. The front office functions as a single window for receiving applications and letters, service delivery, and informing the status of files. This study was intended to identify the lacuna and provide suggestive improvements. If we can apply the TQM elements, the LSGI scan achieve good governance without much sprain.

Keywords

Decentralisation, Local Self Government Institutions, Good Governance, Front Office Management, Citizen Charter, Continuous improvement.

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