Services of Gram Panchayats in Koraput, Orissa: A Citizen Report Card

Abstract

The Citizen Report Card (CRC) is a simple but powerful tool to provide public agencies with systematic feedback from users of public services. By collecting feedback on the quality and adequacy of public services from actual users, CRC provides a rigorous basis and a proactive agenda for communities, civil society organization or local governments to engage in a dialogue with service providers to improve the delivery of public services. Earlier, CRC was being conducted only in the urban context. But the recent CRCs carried out in rural settings have shown that this tool can be effectively used in the rural context also to understand the service delivery of Panchayat Raj Institutions. Centre for Youth and Social Development (CYSD) based in Bhubaneswar, is a non Government, non-profit organization working towards the development of deprived and marginalised people in the remotest areas of Orissa with a vision of facilitating a society where communities are able to make their own choices, meet their survival needs and lead a self-reliant and sustainable life with dignity. To this end, CYSD uses issue based research to influence policies from a pro-poor and rights based perspective. The Current study titled “Services of Gram Panchayats in Koraput, Orissa” is an initiative by the Centre for Youth and Social Development (CYSD), Bhubaneswar with support from the Public Affairs Centre (PAC), Bangalore, India using a nationally and globally recognized tool – the Citizen Report Card (CRC). It is a first of its kind of Citizen Report Card in Orissa, carried out exclusively among rural communities in the stae, which looks at public services that are provided by Gram Panchayats, the lowest tier of the Panchayat Raj Institutions.