Experiences of several decades of democracy show that people take pleasure in services Government takes to their doors but don’t tend to contribute for the welfare of the community. Availing the facilities of basic social services is undoubtedly the right of citizens but becoming part of the welfare initiative of the community in a particular area shows the sense responsibility of the people of state, union territory, district and finally a block. Experiences show that people in Jammu and Kashmir take pleasure in availing the facilities government takes at their doorsteps but unfortunately they don’t tend to be part of any public welfare initiative initiated by the volunteers in groups. So there is clearly a misconception about the rights and responsibilities of the citizens on delivery of basic social services and the community welfare. People cry when they don’t get what government promises them but they don’t ponder over their own inabilities in the non-governmental welfare initiatives either initiated by groups of volunteers or welfare committees in districts, tehsils, blocks and even Mohallas in villages or colonies in cities and towns. Though public welfare is the responsibility of the government but nothing bad in it if people take up welfares measures through community initiatives on their own. What matters the most is the fact that under no circumstances government has not to let the people cry over their accessibility to basic social services like drinking water facility, power supply, sanitation, road connectivity and issues concerning citizen-administration relationships. Had public accountability been reformed for the purposes of the basic human needs of the people, the possibilities of conflicts in citizen-administration relationships on accessibility of people to basic human needs won’t arise at all in Jammu & Kashmir like many other parts of the country.
At the end of the day the reforms in public accountability system can’t be initiated and implemented in short time but the initiative should have been taken long back. Better late than never and better for the government to review the citizen administration relationship through basic human needs over which people are forced to cry on the streets. While people crying for basic human needs is not a good omen for democracy, the people themselves becoming ignorant about the prompt delivery of basic social services is also not a good omen for citizen-administration relationship.
By all standards of understandabilities the solution to citizen-administration conflict on accessibility of basic social services lies only in a responsive administrative which is not possible without reforms in the public accountability system? At the end of the day the reforms in public accountability system can’t be initiated and implemented in short time but the initiative should have been taken long back. Better late than never and better for the government to review the citizen administration relationship through basic human needs over which people are forced to cry on the streets. While people crying for basic human needs is not a good omen for democracy, the people themselves becoming ignorant about the prompt delivery of basic social services is also not a good omen for citizen-administration relationship.
