Ministry carries out various steps :

Public service more people-friendly

Shirley WIJESINGHE

The Public Administration and Home Affairs Ministry has carried out various steps to transform the public service to make it a people-friendly one , including standardizations of service delivery, adoption of ICT performances monitoring system and work process automation to improve the citizen centric service delivery, Ministry Secretary D. Dissanayake told the Daily News.

The adoption of performance monitoring system into the employee performance appraisal system of the Ministry has enabled managers to define and monitor the service delivery time , assign responsibility of service delivery, promote team work in the public service, Dissanayake added.

It is also expected to introduce the performance monitoring system into the entire public service shortly, Dissanayake added.

In view of the citizen centric service delivery the people's day program launched in 2007 was also continued in the year 2009 with the participation of the Minister, Deputy Ministery Secretary and all Heads of Departments and divisions of the Ministry of Public Administration and Home Affairs. The appreciation received from the general public was at a high level and it was a real motivation to the management, Dissanayake said. In 2009, the Seva Piyasa program aiming at bringing services of the Grama Niladhari, Mid Wife, Samurdhi Development Officer and Agriculture Extension Officer under one roof in the village was continued investing Rs 74 million in eighteen districts. To improve the quality of the public service with highly and productive human resources which is essential to ensure an excellent public service, a total of 1,929 personnel were newly recruited in 2009.

They are 136 to Sri Lanka Administrative Service, 830 to Public Management Assistants' Service, 222 for Drivers 622 for Office Employees' Service and 1,929 for the Grama Niladhari Service.

A total of 2,789 Officers were promoted in the respective services in 2009, according to him. In accordance with the Government initiative under the Uthuru Vasanthaya program, the Public Administration and Home Affairs had spent Rs. 73 million for repairing District Secretariats offices, Divisional Secretariat Offices, supplying of office equipment and human resources provision, he said.

The Ministry in collaboration with the United Nations Development Program will implement a program called Local Governance program during the period from 2009-2013, he added.