The government’s decision came at a cabinet meeting chaired by CM Arvind Kejriwal.

NEW DELHI: Early next year, the Delhi government will offer applicants for 40 public services spanning eight departments the possibility of staying at home and having a “mobile sahayak” (mobile assistant) do the legwork for you for a “pre-fixed facilitation fee”. The fee is to be “nominal”.

So, instead of you rushing to a cyber café to submit an online application or falling prey to hapless intermediaries outside government offices and finally queuing up to submit documents, the state’s “mobile sahayak” will do the job to save time, prevent corruption and harassment and ensure time-bound service delivery without repeated visits.

The services vary from marriage registration, caste and income domicile to water connections, driving licences, pension schemes, permanent IDs for disabled, land record reports and registration of construction workers.

According to government figures, approximately 25 lakh transactions of these 40 services take place every year. Each transaction takes around four visits to the office concerned. The service-delivery-at-your-doorstep scheme seeks to end these multiple visits. A visit will be required only if essential for verification or for queries that require the applicant’s presence.

The government’s decision came at a cabinet meeting chaired by CM Arvind Kejriwal. Deputy CM Manish Sisodia announced the government would roll out the scheme within three to four months wherein 40 public services “will reach the doorsteps of citizens”.

Describing the scheme as a step towards “home delivery of governance”, Sisodia said this was also the “first time in the country that such a measure was being worked out”. The government will be hiring a private agency to implement the decision. Sisodia said the aim is to ensure that no Delhi resident has to stand in queues for services listed under the scheme.

The administrative reforms department is the nodal department for scheme implementation. It is estimated that the execution of this facilitation mechanism for three years would cost the public exchequer Rs 8 crore.

“Mobile sahayaks will be hired through the agency that will set up call centres. Various certificates, such as for caste, new water connections, income, driving licenses, ration cards, domicile, marriage registration, duplicate RC and change of address in RC, will be covered under the scheme in the first phase,” Sisodia said. Around 30-35 more services are to be added to the scheme every 30 consecutive days from rollout till all services are covered.

For example, the deputy CM said, if a person wanted to apply for a driving licence, he or she would have to call a designated call centre and give the details. Thereafter, the agency would assign a “mobile sahayak” who would visit the applicant’s residence and get the required details and documents, he said.

However, the applicant would have to visit the MLO’s office once to undergo a driving test, he said. “The mobile sahayak will be equipped with all necessary machines, such as biometric devices and a camera. For home delivery services, the applicant would be charged a nominal fee which is yet to be decided,” Sisodia added. The minister in charge of administrative reforms, Kailash Gahlot, said while many services have online application services, the problem is that many who avail of these services still lack access to computers at home and often bank on cyber cafes or intermediaries standing outside government offices.

“We want to end this unnecessary wastage of time and harassment at the hands of these intermediaries. The mobile sahayaks are a way to have an authorised person become a link between the applicant and the state. Even civil defence volunteers will be trained to be assistants,” Gahlot added.

