Afghanistan too are quite keen

After Bangladesh, now it is the turn of war battered Afghanistan to explore the possibility of replicating ‘Sakaala’, the programme that has been implemented in Karnataka to ensure time-bound delivery of services for the citizens in various departments.

A delegation from Afghanistan, consisting of 16 members of district governors’ ranks, is in Bangalore to study the Sakaala project. It held detailed discussion with Sakaala project officials at MS Building on Friday. The Sakaala officials briefed the delegates as to how the project works in the state and how it benefits citizens.

Department of Personnel and Administrative Reforms (DPAR) secretary and mission director of Sakaala project Shalini Rajneesh said, “The delegation has come as part of Indo-Afghan partnership programme to study Sakaala project, implemented by the state government. We have briefed them how the system works here, including IT solutions at various levels. They were impressed by the system we have in place here.”

“We are ready to extend our co-operation to Afghanistan government, if they want to implement the project. Assistance would be given, once the external affairs minister and other authorities concerned give instructions. A delegation from Bangladesh too had come in September. After that they had shown interest to implement the project by getting a clue from our project. Our additional director of the project will be visiting Bangladesh as resource person and attend a workshop convened by the government there,” said the official.

The delegation also posed several questions to officials of the state on how recruitments to civil service were done, reservation policies and the role of judiciary and others. Sakaala project was implemented as per Karnataka Guarantee of Services to Citizens Act, when DV Sadananda Gowda was the chief minister. Various state government offices have received over one crore applications under the project.

The state government has made available 265 services under the project. Many states are studying the project. Recently a delegation from Odisha government, headed by chief secretary, had met the officials to study the project.