Meghalaya to set up ‘Chief Minister’s Service Delivery Centers’ in 750 locations

Syllad | The Rising MeghalayaMarch 24, 2023

With the realization that many citizens in Meghalaya particularly in the rural areas, may not be able to avail digital services, Meghalaya Chief Minister Conrad K Sangma said a cadre of 10,000 digitally enabled village community facilitators has been created to provide services at the doorstep of every citizen beside announcing the setting up of ‘Chief Minister’s Service Delivery Centers’ in about 750 locations to act as one-stop-shops for providing all citizen service.

In his budget speech, Sangma said the government is implementing the Right to Public Service Act, with 91 citizen services notified under its purview. He also said in the next financial year, they will increase the number of services and reduce the delivery times.

 A single citizen-facing portal of the government will be put in place to increase the ease of accessing government services digitally, he added.

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The Chief Minister informed that they have deployed about 800 business correspondents for improving the delivery of banking services to the remotest villages. He also said that their target is to ensure that the benefits of various cash transfer schemes can be handed over at the doorstep to the citizens.

Sangma said that the network of business correspondents and Village Community Facilitators will enable complete doorstep delivery of all financial and government services saving money and time for lakhs of people.

He also said that this transformative service delivery project will be implemented at a cost of Rs. 500 crore over the next five years.

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The Chief Minister said another collaborative governance initiative is the locality beautification competition through community engagement in Shillong, Tura and Jowai while adding that an amount of Rs. 7.6 crore was spent towards this initiative.

“We will continue to engage with local communities to further expand this program to other towns of the State and I am allocating an amount of Rs. 10 crore towards this for 2023-24,” he added.

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The three district councils are key stakeholders in the overall development journey of the State, Sangma said, “We will continue to work with the councils to improve governance and service delivery. In 2023-24, Rs. 141 crore of finance commission’s grants will be transferred to the councils.”