Odisha Government Aims At People-Centric Governance With Mo Sarkar Initiative

In a bid to make governance more people-centric, the Odisha government has launched an initiative in which ministers would dial common citizens to seek feedback on the kind of response they get during recent visits to police stations and district headquarter hospitals (DHH).

The ‘Mo Sarkar’ or ‘My Government’ programme was launched by Odisha Chief Minister Naveen Patniak on Wednesday as he called a few citizens to seek feedback on the kind services they received.

The programme was launched by the chief minister at Capital Hospital and later at Saheed Nagar police station when he released the official logo and charter of the programme.

Sharing the reason behind the scheme, Naveen Patnaik said, “People are the real masters in a democracy and every institution exists to serve citizens in a professional and dignified manner.”

“Mo Sarkar is an initiative under the 5T model of governance to herald a transformation in government offices,” Patnaik added.

The Mo Sarkar programme will apply to at least 620 police stations and 21 district headquarter hospitals and a few more medical colleges. The services under the Mo Sarkar initiative will be extended to more district headquarter hospitals by the end of the month.

“Under the Mo Sarkar initiative, a citizen will not chase police to register a complain rather, Police officials will follow up with the complainant as to how he was treated at the police station and how his complaint was dealt with,” Naveen Patnaik said.

This means that the state government will collect feedback on the behaviour and professionalism of government officers. All of these government officers will then be graded on the basis of feedback received from people.

CM Patnaik also informed that government employees with good grades will get promotions while action will be taken against those with negative scores.

It is worth mentioning that mobile numbers of all citizens visiting police stations and district headquarter hospitals will be registered, following which an SMS will be sent to them within 24 hours.

All the names and numbers of people who visited either a police station or hospital will be stored in a portal, which will randomly seek feedback from 10 people every day.

Meanwhile, Naveen Patnaik also launched the ‘Mu Safaiwala’ or I am Safaiwala awareness drive and urged people to join the cleanliness movement. At least 300 students participated in the launch event and painted walls with messages on cleanliness. – India Today