Chandigarh: The Punjab Cabinet today decided
to shut down over 1,600 Sewa Kendras, started by the previous
Akali-BJP government in the state for people to avail
citizen-centric services near their homes.
The Sewa Kendras, or the unified service delivery
centres, were providing over 100 citizen-centric services such
as issuing the death and birth certificates to people.
"Punjab cabinet has decided to close all but 500 of the
state's 2,147 Sewa Kendras, with the Chief Minister directing
the concerned department to explore the possibility of using
the infrastructure of the remaining centres as Anganwadis or
Panchayat Ghars," an official release said.
The decision was taken today at a meeting of the cabinet,
presided over by Chief Minister Captain Amarinder Singh.
The cabinet decided to serve a 180-day notice, as
required, to end the contract with the current service
provider of the Sewa Kendras, the release said.
The contract with the provider, who was charging the
government Rs 220 crore annually, was for five years.
It was pointed out during the discussion on the issue
in the cabinet meeting that the Sewa Kendras were constructed
at a cost of Rs 200 crore, with Rs 1,400 crore estimated to be
spent on their operations in five years, it said.
Health Minister Brahm Mahindra described this as a
criminal waste of public money and called for an inquiry into
the matter.
The cabinet also took note of a proposal of the
Department of Governance Reforms, which suggested
rationalisation of the operations of the Sewa Kendras, as well
as the report of the committee formed under the Chief
Secretary to study the functioning of these Kendras.
The committee had found that the state required only
500 such centres, which could be managed by the DCs.
To make the Sewa Kendras project financially viable,
the cabinet decided on shifting their operations to a new
model.
A suggestion was made to use the buildings and other
infrastructure of the Kendras which are shut down for running
Anganwadis and Panchayat Ghars.
The chief minister agreed to consider the proposal and
sought a detailed report on it from the concerned
department.
PTI
