Status of the Implementation of Citizen’s Charter at Public Offices in Bangladesh: An Assessment

Abstract

Citizen’s Charter is one of the important and commendable governance tools in Public Administration of Bangladesh. In 2007, the Cabinet Division took initiative to introduce Citizen’s Charter in different public offices. This study was conducted to assess the implementation status of Citizen’s Charter in Ministry and field level offices of Bangladesh with its challenges. To achieve the research objectives, this study followed both quantitative and qualitative research approaches. Sample survey with semi-structured questionnaires was used for collecting primary data while secondary data were collected from all relevant sources. The study showed that the implementation status of Citizen’s Charter at public offices in Bangladesh is still in its infancy. The service providers are not strictly following their Citizen’s Charter in their routine work. There are a number of drawbacks in implementation of Citizen’s Charter in the public offices. Lack of adequate public awareness is the leading cause of poor implementation of Citizen’s Charter. In addition, lack of proper knowledge among the citizens or service recipients, lack of positive attitude of service providers, communication gap between the service receivers and the service providers and lack of proper monitoring and feedback mechanism were other barriers. The study has come up with the conclusion that, institutionalization of the awareness-building programme, capacity building of the service providers and strengthening monitoring mechanisms are essential to overcome these challenges