Why 30 IAS probationers are given lessons on Karnataka’s Sakala

Shalini Rajneesh, IAS

AS MANY as 30 IAS probationary officers from Lal Bahadur Shastri National Academy of Administration (LBSNAA) were in Bangalore last week to understand a unique Karnataka government scheme called Sakala that gives 447 time-bound services across 45 departments and agencies to its citizens. According to estimates, the total saving of citizens could be to the tune of…
Rs 5,000 crore per year as they don’t need to personally visit the government offices and bribe even a paisa to get their services. Sakala is actually the popular name for the Karnataka Guarantee of Services to Citizens Act, 2011 that has been in force since April 2012. If the sarkari officers fail to deliver the services on a stipulated time, the citizens get compensations that get deducted from the concerned official's salary. And there are provisions for disciplinary actions against those officers who indulge in willful defaults, repeatedly.
Young officer trainees met Shalini Rajneesh, mission director of Sakala and 1989 batch Karnataka cadre IAS. Rajneesh was incidentally the woman topper in her civil services batch. While interacting with the young officers, Rajneesh, a driving force in making Sakala a big success, spoke at length about the difficulties in doing away with the slow delivery system and adopting a time-bound scheme. This is one of the few government schemes which adopted social media tools like Facebook, Twitter, YouTube etc. to reach out to the people.
Earlier, Rajneesh addressed at IIM-Bangalore and explained about this scheme.
A post-graduate in psychology and MBA from the University of Western Sydney, Australia, Rajneesh has worked in the state in various capacities including deputy commissioner of Belgaum and secretary to the woman and child development ministry. At the Centre too, she was a director in the woman and child development ministry.