Public Service Delivery in Nepal

3.2 Public Service Delivery in Nepal

Public service delivery is the set of procedures and apparatus for providing goods and services to the people in an effective, efficient, responsive and time-bound manner. Various efforts have been made for effective, efficient and citizen-centric public service delivery in Nepal.

The provisions relating to policies, legal and institutional mechanism can be elaborated as follows: –

• Constitution of Nepal: – Constitution of Nepal, in Article 51, has made the clear provision of guaranteeing good governance by ensuring equal and easy access of people to service provided by the state and making public administration clean, competent, impartial, transparent, accountable and participatory.
• Civil Service Act, 2049: – In its preamble, Civil Service Act pledges for making civil service competent, progressive, service-oriented and accountable.
• Good Governance Act, 2064: – It has legal provisions for ensuring good governance and effective and efficient delivery of services.
• Similarly, Local Government Operation Act, 2074, Nepal Police Act, 2012, Local Administration Act, 2028, among others, provide legal framework for efficient and effective public service delivery in their respective domain.
• Various ministers, National Planning Commission, local governments, public enterprises, NGOs, community-based organizations and private sectors are involved in delivering the service to public to public, in their respective sector.
• Provision of citizen charter, mobile services, integrated service center, grievance handling system, public hearing among others are made for making public service more responsive, citizen-centric and accountable.
• Service Campaign Operation Directive, 2065 and Government Decision Process Simplification Directive, 2065 have been implemented with objective of ensuring public satisfaction by providing public service through process simplification in an efficient, accountable and transparent manner.
• Despite these various efforts and rhetoric pledge of political and administrative leadership to improve public service delivery, it still is day dream for the general public to get efficient and effective public service.

Factors to be considered in public service delivery: –

• Identification of service need/Service mapping: – Diagnose the service need of public, which may vary depending on geographical regions, communities, class of people and the like.
• Prioritization of services: – Some services should be provided promptly such as fire control, ambulance, rescue, epidemic control, etc. They should be prioritized among services while delivering service.
• Standards of service delivery: – Regardingprocedures, requirements, fees and legal process for service delivery.
• Allocation of responsibility: – Allocation of well-defined responsibilities to public bodies and employees for public service.
• Provision of resources: – Human, Physical, financial, information, technology, etc.required to deliver sound service.
• Developing institutional capacity: – of service provider.
• Public Participation: – in service delivery.
• Inter-agency coordination: – among service provider agencies.
• Provision of: – grievance handling and public hearing mechanism.

Weakness of public service delivery in Nepal: –

• Mismatch between service provided, and service need of the people (poor service mapping).
• Inability to reach the targeted groups of people, and services available to limited number of people.
• Under-utilization of available resources in service delivery.
• Low priority and weak political commitment on provision of public services.
• Fixing up modalities of the services from the centre without taking into account the local economic, cultural, social and geographical context.
• Too much process-oriented working styles and methods rather than result orientation in public bodies.
• Poor monitoring and evaluation mechanism in public service delivery.
• Ignorance and lack of awareness in service recipients about the provision of public service, and their delivery.
• Overlaps and gaps in responsibilities of public bodies for service delivery.
• Prevalence of “one size fits all” mentality in public service.
• Low confidence and trust between service providers and service seekers.
• Contribution in service delivery not incorporated as determinant in career system of bureaucrats.
• Political affiliation of trade unions in administration impact on service delivery.
• Irregularities, poor incentive and low morale in bureaucracy.
• Supply-based service delivery instead of demand-based service delivery.

Legal basis for service delivery: –   

Some of the major legal instruments guiding public service delivery in Nepal are: –

1. Constitution of Nepal-Directive principles, policies and obligations of the state.
2. Job allocation rule of the government of Nepal and provincial governments.
3. Local government operation Act, 2074.
4. Good governance Act, 2064.
5. Right to information Act, 2064, and Rules 2065.
6. Periodic plan, annual budget, policies and programs.
7. Service campaign operation directive, 2065
8. Government decision process simplification directive, 2065
9. Civil service Act, 2049, Civil Service Rules, 2050, etc.