Kathmandu, January 5

In a bid to reduce the crowd and provide smooth service to people, the District Administration Office, Kathmandu, has implemented a time card system in the 10 essential services it provides.

Kathmandu's Chief District Officer Ghana Shyam Upadhaye said the time card system was implemented from today onwards. According to him, service seekers are not required to visit the office frequently or wait for hours to get service. As per the plan, the DAO, upon receiving all the documents or applications from service seekers can provide them with desired documents within a maximum of one hour on the date they are asked to visit. 'Normally, the government offices does not provide a fixed date for any services and lots of people gather outside the office. But with the time card in practice, no service seeker is required to spend more than one hour at the office.'

With this new system in practice, the DAO claims that people can now get their citizenship certificate within 30 minutes, passports within 15 minutes and any kind of judicial duty of the DAO will be completed within 30 minutes and final verdict of such cases will be given within 60 days.

Crimes related to social injustice and disharmony are looked after by the DAO.

Company renewal will be done within 30 minutes, infants' identity cards will be issued within one hour and so on.

Similarly, Kathmandu CDO has allocated one hour time on a regular basis from 3:00pm to 4:00pm to hear complaints from the public regarding the service provided to them. While elderly people, the disabled, pregnant women or new mothers will get the service without having to stand in queue as per the new rule, people older than 75 years will get a helper from the office to avail the service.

'The new system has garnered big support from the public today and we hope this system will be a milestone for service being provided in the government sector,' Upadhaye said. He further said the DAO had taken this initiative amidst the lack of human and other resources, adding that it was committed to improve the service so that people could feel it.

The initiative taken by Kathmandu, if proven to be effective, can provide a glimmer of hope to improve the grim scenario wherein people have to wait for hours or spend multiple days to get basic services from government offices.

A version of this article appears in the print on January 6, 2023, of The Himalayan Times.