5T Impact: Ward Officers to Bring Urban Governance Closer to People

Bhubaneswar: As Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik categorically insisted all government machinery to work in cohesion by implementing the 5T Mantra to bring about transformational change in the State, the government departments are fast adopting the action plan in mission mode in delivery of services to the people. After Health and Higher Education Departments, now the Housing and Urban Development Department has embarked on a new beginning in bringing the urban governance closer to the people as part of the 5T initiative.

One of the 5T governance principles is ‘Time’, which is an important indicator to test the efficacy of the institution whose mandate is to provide basic services to all. It is therefore imperative to develop a proper field level functional delivery mechanism for effective delivery of services and redressal of grievances related to urban residents.

In order to achieve this, the Urban Development Department has decided to engage ‘Ward Office’ on part time basis and an employee of the Urban Local Body will be designated as ‘Ward Officer’. The Ward Officer will be the nodal officer for each ward and will be exclusively responsible for basic services, development, collection of data/information, redressal of grievances and to coordinate various works related to that ward, the Department said.

The Ward Officer will work as a connecting link between the citizens and the Urban Local Body helping the people to access the Ward Office which is nearer to their doorstep.

The ‘Ward Office’ will function every day from 10 AM to 12 Noon to address all the issues of urban residents, the department said.