Rs 5,000 Fine, Salary Deductions Await Officials Who Miss Service Deadlines Under New Auto-Appeal Mechanism
Departments have been asked to implement the guidelines immediately
Bhubaneswar: In a significant push towards administrative accountability, the Odisha government on Monday unveiled a new Standard Operating Procedure (SOP) to operationalise an Auto-Appeal System (AAS) under the Odisha Right to Public Services Act, 2012 a move aimed squarely at officials who drag their feet on delivering public services.
The framework, issued by the general administration department, does away with the need for citizens to actively pursue appeals when their applications languish beyond the stipulated deadline. Instead, any service request that is not fulfilled within the prescribed time limit will now be escalated automatically into the appellate process, removing a procedural burden that has long discouraged ordinary citizens from seeking redress.
At the heart of the new mechanism lies a financial deterrent. Officers found responsible for delays face a penalty of Rs 250 for every day of default, capped at Rs 5,000 a sum that, notably, will not merely be levied on paper. The SOP mandates that the fine be recovered directly from the erring official's salary, with the penalty mechanism integrated into the Human Resources Management System (HRMS) and linked to the state Treasury for seamless, automatic deduction.
The initiative marks Odisha's latest attempt to inject teeth into its public service delivery framework, which has, on paper, guaranteed time-bound services to citizens since 2012 but has often struggled with enforcement. By fixing individual responsibility on officers and tying consequences directly to their pay, the government appears intent on closing the gap between statutory promise and administrative practice.
A senior official associated with the rollout said the SOP was designed to standardise workflows across departments and ensure uniform compliance. “The SOP has been framed to standardise workflow, ensure compliance and streamline the implementation and operationalisation of the Auto-Appeal System. Departments have been asked to implement the guidelines immediately,” the official said.
The general administration department has already circulated the SOP to all government departments, with instructions to disseminate it down to the level of individual officers and staff. The department's notification directed that "the guidelines outlined in the enclosed SOP be communicated to all concerned officers/staff under your administrative jurisdiction for implementation with immediate effect."
With the new system, Odisha joins a growing list of states experimenting with technology-driven accountability tools to make governance more responsive though the real test, officials concede, will lie in how rigorously the auto-escalation and salary-deduction provisions are enforced on the ground in the months ahead.