Right to Public Service Act, 2014 of KP Government enacted

In an interview to ‘The News’ the Chief Commissioner of Right to Public Service Commission, KPK Azmat Hanif Orakzai told that in order to improve governance in the province the PTI led coalition government of Khyber-Pakthunkhwa enacted a few laws through the provincial assembly which inter-alia included the KPK Right to Public Services Act -2014. The core object of the law is to improve the public services delivery of public services to the citizens. In order to achieve the purpose the provincial government established Right to Public Services commission (RTS). According to Chief Commissioner the Right to Public Service Commission works as an appellate authority granted with the powers of a civil court under the Civil proceeding Code. The main office is based at Peshawar which is headed by a Chief Commissioner with two other commissioners. Similarly the commission has posted monitoring officers at every district of the province. The Commission is also responsible for creating awareness about the law among the general public and entertain against the appellate authorities. It also monitors the delivery of the notified 15 public services. For this purpose the commission has put in place a comprehensive monitoring system to be provided information by the district monitoring officers on regular basis. Azmat Hanif Orakzai while answering to a question said that it has to be understood that the RTS Commission is not a complaint office in strict sense of terms however under the section 24 of the Act the commission empowered to receive applications from citizens who don’t receive the desired services in time. Such applications are converted into appeals and sent to the appellate authorities for the redressal. Details of such applications are annexed. However all the applications received directly by the commission were tackled and the citizens were provided the required services. In order to make the RTS Act-2014 more efficient & public friendly, the RTS commission has proposed certain amendmentsin the act. For example the time limit for an appellate authority to execute an appeal related to Issuance of a domicile is 10 days. Keeping in mind the need of a common citizen the commission through a proposal, has requested the government to reduce the period. Similarly the commission has proposed to reduce the time limit from 60 to 30 days to dispose off an appeal against the appellate authority. The proposed amendments were sent to the law department for vetting. Thereafter the same will be presented before the provincial government and subsequently sent to the provincial assembly for the consideration/approval by the legislators, he briefed. Highlighting the Future plans of the commission the chief commissioner informed to notify additional services under the act and fixing time limit for provision of the services to the citizens. e.g Education, Forestry etc. In this connection suggestions from the general public were invited through a Public Notice published in the leading newspapers. Now when the local bodies system has put in place under the local government Act and more then 45 thousand councilors have been selected .The Commission has launched a campaign to familiar the newly elected councilors with the RTS Law so that the councilors may use the law in solving the problems of the people at grass root level. In this connection awareness seminars were arranged for the councilors at Peshawar, Haripur, Swat, Buner etc. for the information of general public it is necessary to share that PILDAT has given in their survey report published in October 2015 the maximum points to the government of KPK in good governance followed by Punjab etc. The RTS Act has played a significant role in contributing towards the improvement of good governance in the province.

Gina Torres Gives Blessing To