Research Monograph

On
Citizen Charter: Does It Affect the Quality of Service Delivery?
A Study on Dhaka North City Corporation

(Submitted in the partial fulfilment of the course requirement of PA-423)

Submitted to
Dr.Salahuddin M. Aminuzzaman
Professor
Department of Public Administration
University of Dhaka

Submitted by
Exam Roll: 4109
Registration No: 2013-315-555
Research Group-05
Session: 2013-2014
4th Year (8thSemester)
Department of Public Administration
University of Dhaka

Date of Submission: 28th December, 2017.

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 Acknowledgement

First of all, I am very grateful to my almighty Allah who has given me the opportunity and
ability to conduct this research with free from any kind of illness. Now ―Where I am‘‘ has been
fully possible due to his grace and deepest kindness.

Then I would like to express my deepest appreciation to my respected teacher and

supervisor Professor Dr. Salahuddin M. Aminuzzaman for his proper guidance. During proposal
writing, I faced lots of confusions. But his valuable comments and constant encouragement
through numerous consultations have given me proper direction. Without his help it would not
be possible for me to carry out this paper.

My thanks also should go to my respected teacher, Professor Mobasser Monem, who developed
my basic understanding about Citizen Charter while attending his classes in 7th semester.
Besides I am thankful to all well hearted respondents who gave their valuable time for the
completion of our field survey.

Finally, I wish to extend my appreciation and thanks to my group-mates. All of the members of
my group were very helpful and cordial to carry out a research on ―Citizen Charter: Does it
affect the quality of service delivery‖. Their efforts were highly apparent in gathering enough
information and accomplishing a successful fieldwork.

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 Letter of Transmittal

Date: 28.12.2017
Dr. Salahuddin M. Aminuzzaman
Professor
Department of Public Administration
University of Dhaka

Subject: Submission of Research Monograph

Dear Sir,
I have completed my research monograph on ―Citizen Charter: Does it affect the quality of
Service delivery (A Study on Dhaka North City Corporation)‖ as an academic course
requirement of 8th semester. I would like to submit my study report as per your specification. I
would also like to draw your kind attention to the fact that I have tried my level best to gather
and organize all the information needed for this particular report. If you have further any query
concerning this report, I would be very pleased if you inform me that.

May I, therefore, wish and hope that you would be gracious enough to accept my report and
oblige thereby.

Yours Sincerely,
Exam Roll: 4109
Registration No: 2013-315-555
8th semester (8th batch)
Session: 2013-2014

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 TABLE OF CONTENTS:

Preface
Acknowledgement……………………………………………………………………… I
Letter of Transmittal…………………………………………………………………… II
List of Figures……………………………………………………………………………V
List of Tables…………………………………………………………………………... VI
List of Abbreviations……………………………………………………………………VI
Abstract………………………………………………………………………………….VII
Chapter 1: Introduction
1.1 Introduction…………………………………………………………………………....2
1.2 Background of the Study................................................................................................4
1.3 Statement of the Problem………………………………………………………………4
1.4 Justification of the study..................................................................................................6
1.5 Research Questions……………………………………………………………………..7
1.6 Hypothesis………………………………………………………………………………7
1.7 Research Objectives…………………………………………………………………….8
1.8 Limitations of the study………………………………………………………………...9
Chapter 2: Literature Review
2.1 Literature review………………………………………………………………………12
2.2 Operational definition…………………………………………………………………14
Chapter 3: Research Methodology

3.1 Research Design………………………………………………………………………..15

3.2 Research Method………………………………………………………………………15

3.3 Research Area………………………………………………………………………….15

3.4 Sampling Method………………………………………………………………………15

3.5 Sample size…………………………………………………………………………….16

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3.6 Data collection Procedure……………………………………………………………..16

3.7 Data Collection Instruments…………………………………………………………..16

3.8 Sources of Data……………………………………………………………………….17

3.9 Data Analysis and Presentation Procedure……………………………………………17

Chapter 4: Theories or concepts of the study

4.1 Citizen Charter: The concept………………………………………………………….18

4.2 Citizens satisfaction: Conceptual Issues………………………………………………20

4.3 Theory of Good Governance………………………………………………………….21

4.4 New Public Management……………………………………………………………...22

Chapter 5: Data Analysis, Findings and Discussion

5.1 Data Presentation and Analysis………………………………………………………..27

i. Basic Research Question 1……………………………………………………………..34

ii. Specific Research Question 1………………………………………………………….36

iii. Specific Research Question 2…………………………………………………………40

iv. Basic Research Question 2……………………………………………………………40

v. Presentation and analysis of observation results………………………………………41

5.2 Findings……………………………………………………………………………41-46

i. Implication of Citizen‘s Charter on Service delivery………………………………...44

ii. Hypothesis……………………………………………………………………………46

5.3 Discussion……………………………………………………………………………50

Chapter 6: Conclusion…………………………………………………………………..51

References……………………………………………………………………………….53

Appendix……………………………………………………………………………….....57

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 List of Figures

Figure- 1: Independent and dependent variables……………………………………….7

Figure-2: Service Quality and Customer satisfaction…………………………………..19

Figure-3: Heard about the introduction of CC in DNCC………………………………23

Figure-4: Proper information about the services of DNCC mentioned in CC…………25

Figure-5: Usefulness of Information……………………………………………………29

Figure-6: Timelines for getting services………………………………………………..29

Figure-7: Contributing factors for getting services within stipulated time……………...30

Figure-8: Reasons for non-delivery of services within stipulated time…………………31

Figure-9: Access to information…………………………………………………………32

Figure-10: Accessibility to the designated desk-staff and complain-officer ……………32

Figure-11: Treatment from officials of DNCC…………………………………………..33

Figure-12: Readiness of employees to hear customers‘ problem……………………….35

Figure- 13: Determinants of quality / satisfaction……………………………………….37

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 List of Tables

Table: 1- Knowledge about CC and its services (with different aspects)…………………25

Table: 2- Social class, promptness of officers and value for money…………………......34

Table: 3- Complain system in DNCC…………………………………………………......36

Table: 4- Influence of different variables on satisfaction regarding DNCC‘s services……38

Abbreviations

CC Citizen Charter
DNCC Dhaka North City Corporation
NPM New Public Management
PARC Public Administration Reform Commission
PRSP Poverty Reduction Strategy Paper
GOB Government of Bangladesh

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 Abstract
―Changes call for innovation and innovation leads to progress‖—Le Kequiang. Citizen Charter is
a kind of innovation which is called for changing the attitude of government offices to the
citizens of a country. From the year of 2007 it is obligatory that all government offices of
Bangladesh must have their own Citizen‘s Charter with specification of different criteria related
to both services and service providers. But in our country there are few empirical research have
been conducted to see the implication of CC in bringing progress for its citizens. The current
research is an endeavour to explore the implication of Citizen Charter on quality of service
delivery. The ensuing Study selected its case as Dhaka North City Corporation which is the
largest institution under local government of Bangladesh. It is also notable that the scope of this
study is so broad that it covers different aspects. For instance, while in assessing the implication
of CC, it assessed both the quality of DNCC‘s services with the satisfaction of service receivers,
influence of different variables on the Citizens knowledge and satisfaction about services.
Combinations of quantitative and qualitative research design and survey method are used in this
study. The respondents of this research are taken from two wards of Dhaka North City
Corporation (Wards 32 and 33).The findings of this study reveal that ―DNCC‘s Citizen Charter
is for the people but by the central government. Majority of the people do not have any
information about the introduction of CC in DNCC‘s offices. They also believe that service
related information provided in DNCC‘s Citizen Charter ultimately brings no significant changes
in the quality of services. This study has specified some criteria of quality and taken respondents
opinion for measuring the quality of DNCC‘s services. The findings show that DNCC is failed to
provide quality of services based on its selected criteria. But it has some successes in providing
cost-effective services and to some extent in ensuring accessibility to concerned officials.
Another important finding is that- gender, education, income, age, social class and occupation as
dependent variables make influences on Citizens satisfaction and knowledge about CC and its
services. Furthermore, due to corruption; lack of coordination; absence of performance appraisal
process; ignorance of service receivers; bureaucratic attitude and corruption, the positive
implication of CC of DNCC in the delivery of quality services is not up to the marked.

Keyword: Citizen Charter, Dhaka North City Corporation, Quality, Service, knowledge,
Satisfaction.

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Chapter: 01 Introduction

1.1 Introduction:

“Mahatma Gandhi” adorned the spirit of Citizen Charter in the following words:

―A customer is the most important visitor in our premises. He is not dependent on us; we are
dependent on him. He is not interruption in our work; he is the purpose of it. He is not outsider
to our business; he is part of it.We are not doing favour by serving him; he is doing us a favour
by giving us an opportunity to do so‖. The implied meaning of this quote is now incorporated
into the philosophy of modern Public Administration. New Public Management as a new
paradigm of Public Administration advocated different innovations for government organization.
Among these innovations Citizen Charter (CC) is prominent one.

Citizen‘s Charter (CC), as a means of improving public service delivery has become popular
around the world since the 1990s. In order to change administrative rigidity and enhance
responsiveness of public organizations to society, the Government of Bangladesh (GOB)
introduced CC in 2007. The essence of CC was to empower citizens by mentioning their rights,
privileges and duties; to make the administration less bureaucratic-dominated and more citizen-
led. Hence the service delivery mechanism would be improved through the use of CC. Now
Bangladesh is seeking improvement in its public service delivery by introducing CC. In such
situation Dhaka North City Corporation as a body of local government has adopted CC for
improving its services quality. The principal objective of this study is to identify the implication
of CC on providing the quality of service delivery. Another objective is to identify whether
social class, income, age, gender, occupation and education influence citizen‘s satisfaction and
their knowledge about CC and its services. People have the right to know what services are
available from a particular office, what formalities need to be completed, and what their
timeframe is. It also attempts to explore whether citizens are satisfied and knowledgeable about
the services of Citizen Charter. The focus of this study is on Citizen Charter of Dhaka North City
Corporation and its services. In this study quality of service delivery means timeliness,
responsiveness and friendliness, cost effective service, access to concerned officials, access to

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information, usefulness of information, equal treatment and effective complaint system. As for
data collection- questionnaire, observation, and documentary analysis are also used in this study.
Finally for validating the research findings, this study gathered opinion from DNCC‘s official.

1.2 Background of the study:

―Quality is a word we see everywhere, we‘re all in favour of quality, just as we‘re all against
sin.‖-Anna Coote (1998)

Every government wants to gain trust and support of its citizens by providing effective and
efficient public services. Governments therefore take various approaches to bringing changes
within their existing system of administration. In recent years, a market-based assumptions,
principles and structures are increasingly becoming influential in theory and practice of public
governance. These may collectively be referred as New Public Management. In fact, as a
management philosophy, NPM stresses upon hands-on professional management, explicit
standards and measures of performance and value for money. The last and important addition to
this list is closeness to the customer i.e., citizens (Rhodes 1996). Various scholars contend that
traditional administrative system is ineffective, insensitive, inefficient, and often hostile to the
people whom they claim to serve (Osborne and Gaebler 1992). Due to their adherence to
traditional and process oriented administrative systems, governments of different countries have
been suffering from demoralized employees, poor service qualities, ineffectiveness and
inefficient bureaucrats. For being a poor service deliverer, many public service organizations in
different countries have been losing their citizens‘ trust and satisfaction. Subsequently this
limitation is affecting not only the position of a particular government but also the whole
politico-economic nomenclature of a country. Beniwal (2005) mentions that ‗the fast growing
bureaucracy followed by increasing degree of dissatisfaction among citizens and fiscal crises
have led to a search for a model of governance which not only promotes efficiency and economy
in administration but also treats service delivery to the satisfaction of its user as the central
concern‘. The CC of the United Kingdom (UK) was the end of this search. Like other developing
countries, government introduced CC in 2007 as a part of its reform initiative in all governmental
departments and organizations with the stated goal of providing its citizens with high quality
service remaining within the ambit of transparency, responsiveness and accountability. It may be
mentioned here that Public Administration Reform Commission (PARC) suggested the adoption

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of CC for a few ministries in 2000. Later on, the importance of CC as a way of ensuring good
governance was stressed in PRSP (ii). ―Citizen‘s Charter‖ of Bangladesh promises to its citizens
the bringing of efficiency and effectiveness throughout its entire entity. Through this
administrative reform initiative, GOB also wanted to provide more user-friendly public services
through improvement in the performance of its public officials.

―According to the Constitution of the People‘s Republic of Bangladesh, ―all powers in the
Republic belong to the people‖ and ―every person in the service of the Republic has a duty to
strive at all times to serve the people‖ (Khan 2008). .Citizens are becoming dissatisfied with the
poor quality of services of government offices. In Bangladesh, people have to wait for a long
period in the public offices for small, simple or petty clerical work. They face many hurdles
(bribe, tadbir11, oiling) to get their job done by the public employees. It is a daily picture of
many public offices in Bangladesh. Zafarullah and Siddiquee (2001) noted that the public sector
of Bangladesh not only rides with various dimensions of corruption such as bribery, rent-seeking
and misappropriation of funds but also the performance of public organization is adversely
affected by excessive lobbying, delays in service provision, pilferage and larceny, irresponsible
conduct of officials, bureaucratic intemperance, patronage and clientelism. According to UNDP
Report (2007), while trying to receive the public services, people experience unnecessary
harassment, uncourteous behaviour of the civil servants, who keep customers waiting for hours
before attending to their needs. The members of the civil service are, by and large, unwilling to
correct mistakes, and often make unabashed approaches for pecuniary benefits. To bring changes
in the stubborn nature of the bureaucratic system and regain people‘s trust, GOB has been
introducing new techniques and tools in government office for the last few decades. Since
independence in 1971, the government constituted 17 Reform Commissions or Committees with
a view to reorganizing/ reforming civil service and public sector in order to solve the
aforementioned hurdles of public service. In spite of significant efforts, the Bangladesh Civil
Service is still largely caught in traditional concepts of public administration and civil service
(UNDP report, 2007). In recent years, some strategic inventions have been taken by government
for breaking the traditional way of service delivery system and generating modern ways of
delivering public services. In this regard, the introduction of Citizen Charter is considered as a
way forward for appropriating the initiatives taken by government. It is thought that the
introduction of CC would help bringing about accountability and transparency in the

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administration and reduce harassment of the clients while seeking services in such departments
and bodies [The Daily Star13, 2008-06-10 (online edition)]. By ‗bringing the government closer
to the people, public officials are expected to have a greater ability to recognize, interpret and
satisfy more precisely citizens‘ needs and demands for public goods and services‘ (Evans, 1997)

1.3 Statement of the problem:

This research paper is on Citizen Charter: Does it affect the quality of services delivery? This
research is about the effectiveness of Citizen Charter of Dhaka North City Corporation. Major
research works on City Corporations, in Bangladesh have sorted out some typical problems
linked to citizen‘s attitudes. There are a total number of 30 services that DNCC provides
according to their citizen charter. But the Citizens are not much aware of the functions and
functionaries of the DNCC, and so, they are not engaged in the activities of the corporation and
they do not know properly what services they can get from City Corporation. Here we are trying
to find our whether the citizens are aware and knowledgeable about the services provided by
DNCC. We also try to find out whether income, age, gender, occupation, social class and
education influence citizen‘s satisfaction and their knowledge regarding CC and its services.
There is hardly any prior notice on the proposed or undertaken activities. The corporation gets
their notices published in the national dailies on regular basis. As a matter of fact, citizens hardly
read the advertisements or the notices of the CC. There are a total number of 30 services that
DNCC provides according to their CC. This research paper can give some answers about- how
much people have knowledge about CC; does CC affect the quality of services, how much
satisfaction people have with the services, and finally what they get from Dhaka North City
Corporation?

1.4 Justification of the Study:

In Bangladesh, a very little study has been conducted to investigate impacts of Citizen Charter on
service delivery especially in the case of City Corporation. Study on this area is largely
unexplored and of course interesting too. It is obvious that CC is simply a notice board hanging
on the wall of government offices, but this simple thing might be a magic tool for public service
delivery if favourable working environment exists. As a strong device of good governance, it
requires continuous and regular feedbacks from its environment because of the ever-changing

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needs of the citizens and also the development of new service delivery tools like e-governance.
So it is necessary to observe the implementation of such a tool devised for the sake of citizen.

As a result of the Local Government (City Corporation) Amendment act (2011), former Dhaka
City Corporation is now divided into two city corporations--- (i) Dhaka South City Corporation
(DSCC) and (ii) Dhaka North City Corporation (DNCC). This study has focused its attention
only on DNCC‘s Citizen Charter and its service delivery as well as satisfaction level of citizens
as time limitation and nearness of location are considering factors. Besides, working on DNCC
added new flavour into our research because residents of its two selected wards belong in two
different economic classes, which are unlike in DSCC. Thus social stratification, a sociological
term, has necessarily facilitated to searching or seeking the linkage between education, income,
age, power distance and awareness of citizens regarding services. So in a way, consideration of
social perspective has increased additional significances to the study. Moreover City Corporation
provides diversified number of services and this is true only for limited number of government
offices. For this reason, it is easier to inquire – how Citizen Charter affects the delivery of
miscellaneous services given by a single organization. That means the selected research topic
gives a single but a wider space, and also provides the chance of making a comparative analysis.

In a city corporation, both selected and elected officials are titled for specific actions that
contribute the overall service delivery. When elected officials exist in an organization, it is also
politically liable for certain quality of services to the citizens outside of its administrative
obligation. It implies that the research is conducted in that environment in which administrative
functions make influences on political commitment or vice versa. In such a complex
environment it is interesting to know how much citizens are aware regarding the services they
deserve or what is the state of their awareness?, though they should have minimum level of
consciousness by dint of their franchise. So the research is done in a different environment that is
not most often common in other research. It can be assumed that this research has explored
something new and alluring information.

New Public Management (NPM), a hybrid concept, regards citizens as ‗clients‘ or ‗customers‘
and encourages public sector to be more efficient and responsive. As Citizen Charter is keen to
the efficiency, accountability and transparency in public service delivery, NPM has therefore its
own interest in the development of the concept of CC and related initiatives. Like many

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developing countries NPM is also a new concept of reforms in Bangladesh Public
Administration. So if our administration wants to fulfil the requirements of NPM regime, it
cannot deny the demands of standard Citizen Charter, which can be done by taking the feedback
of different research papers and ours is one of them.

For any kind of innovation, financial cost is must. Hence, it is important to study about the
implementation of Citizen Charter and find whether it has achieved the desired ends like making
the people aware about their services so that financial wastage cannot happen and government
can become more aware in future regarding such initiatives. This research mainly depended on
primary sources of data and secondary sources of data are little in amount. By means of
extensive field work, we got close interaction with people. In one sense this research is more
authentic and in another sense it raises the voice of common people. Thus doing a research on
this topic is also emotionally justified.

Information itself means nothing if we don‘t do anything with it. Public Administration in
Bangladesh has undergone different innovative ideas in different time but few of them have
successes in incorporating their values into the organizational culture. After formal launching of
Citizen Charter initiative, it is crucial to know- does it affect the quality of service delivery? Do
citizens know about the services of Citizen Charter? And can social class, income, age, gender,
occupation and education influence citizen‘s satisfaction and their knowledge about the Citizen
Charter and its services. And In this manner the research has dealt an olden issue of our public
organizations. And lastly it can be said that the study is useful to the academics, scholars and
other researchers. The findings of the research can validate the existing literature on ―Citizen
Charter and its effects on service delivery‖, and generate new insights in this field.

1.5 Research Questions:

Basic Research questions
The basic research questions of this study seek to answer:
1. Are the city dwellers aware and knowledgeable about the Citizen Charter and its services
provided by the Dhaka North City Corporation?

2. Can social class, income, age, gender, occupation and education influence citizen‘s
satisfaction and their knowledge about its services?

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Specific Research questions
The study tries to seek answer to the following specific questions:

1. Can Dhaka North City Corporation provides quality service delivery to its citizens and are the
Citizens satisfied with it?

2. Can the people make allegations to the authority in case of irregularities in the delivery of
services?

1.6 Hypothesis: 1.Citizen‘s satisfaction and their knowledge about citizen charter and its
services are influenced by income, social class, age, gender, occupation, and education.

Independent and dependent variables:

Figure: 1

Dependent Variables
Independent Variables

Citizens’ satisfaction and

their knowledge about
Citizen Charter

Income Social class Age Gender Occupation Education

In the present study, income, social class, age, gender, occupation and education are independent
variables and citizen‘s satisfaction, their knowledge about citizen charter and its services are
dependent variables.

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1.7 Research Objectives:

The objectives of this study are ----------

1. To investigate whether citizens are aware and knowledgeable about the Citizen Charter
and its services provided by Dhaka North City Corporation.
2. To know whether social class, income, age, gender, occupation and education influence
citizen‘s knowledge about Citizen Charter and their satisfaction regarding services (not
necessarily service satisfaction relies on the knowledge of CC).
3. To know if the citizens get quality service delivery.
4. To identify the impact of citizen charter on providing the quality of service delivery.

1.8Limitations of the study:

i. Access to people:

Our research wholly depends on having access to general people at two different areas in
Dhaka city. So we faced some problems when we were trying to communicate with general
people. Some people did not show any interest to cooperate with us due to their security
concerns or their time constraints. So this problem created obstacles to gather extensive and
enough information.

ii. Lack of prior research studies on the topic:

This research topic is comparatively new in research arena. There are very few studies in our
country tried to investigate this particular area. Though some researchers did their work on
citizen charter in different government institutions but there is no single study on citizen
charter in Dhaka North City Corporation. So in literature review, a limited number of
secondary resources are analyzed. For this reason it is very difficult to lead the whole study
dependent on only little secondary sources.

iii. Cost and expensiveness:

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 This type of research requires a handsome amount of money. As we are student, we have so
limited resources that compelled us to curtail many of the programmes that could help to
improve value of the research.

iv. Shortage of participants:

100 sampling people are too little to generalize and reach at a conclusion. So this is a major
shortcoming of our research.

v. Shortage of time:

Most of the information used in this paper is mainly collected from survey method. Survey
research is always time consuming. However we have gotten only four months to finish the
study and within this time we had to continue other academic activities. So this problem
affects the overall quality of this report.

vi. Methodological Limitation:

This study adopts only survey and observation method. Other methods like FGD, cheque
list, case study are not employed though they could help to make this paper more informative
and sound.

Chapter: 2 Literature Review:

2.1 Literature Review:

Due to rapid technological, political and social changes that have taken place in the last few
years, governments have been forced to taken fundamental administrative changes to embrace
development. Citizen charter was reached the shore of Bangladesh in2000.PARC recommended
the introduction of citizen charter in public agencies. On 21st May, 2007 The Government of
Bangladesh circulated an official order to prepare a citizen charter especially in those parts of the
public sectors that provide basic services to the people.

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Hood (1991) stated that citizen charter seems to have been part of much longer term trend in
which public services were becoming more user friendly and evolving in a way that has been
described as the New Public Management.

McEldowney (1996) states that charter is intended to encourage quality in services.

According to Pollitt (1994) citizen's charter is the most comprehensive programme

Ever to raise quality, increase choice, secure better value and extend accountability

Complaints and redress mechanisms and quality awards.

Torres (2006) states the basic idea is that charters set quality standards against which
performance can be measured and standards will rise as a result of the pressure that users can put
on the service providers.

According to Osborne and Gaebler (1992), caused irritation to citizens in dealing with the
arrogance of government bureaucracy where he further argues that even skilled people get lost in
the bureaucratic wildness in got operations.However,these has also been a concern evident at the
level of state to recover its image and acceptability and to escape for privatisation which remains
relevant to live of citizens. According to Pollitt(1994),The introduction of modern citizens
charter was closely associated with the Conservative Government of then Prime Minister of UK
John Major.Jhon Major stated that charter programme will find better ways of converting money
into better services.

Dharma (2004) emphasis that citizens charter usually indicates the rights and services available
to the citizens, procedure how these will be delivered, remedy that will be available in case of
non deliverance and obligations of citizens in return.

Lane (2005) stated that the idea of citizen's charter for public services, strong role is given to
possibility of hearing the consumer through grievance redress system and providing the
information for service delivery by the public agencies.

Venial (2005) argues that citizen's charter aspires to establish the bottom up version of
accountability where administrators are placed directly under the citizens instead of political
masters.

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Robin's Tamarkar (2010) emphasises that the introduction of citizen's charter is expected to
enhance good governance and reinforce people's faith in the govt institutions as well as
improvement of service delivery.

Torres (2006) stated that the basic idea of citizen's charter is that charter set quality standards
against which performance can be measured and standard will rise as a result of the pressure that
users can put on the service providers.

AHM Kamrul Ahsan and Ahmed Shafiqul Huque found that poor implementation strategies and
practices in developing countries impede empowerment of citizens and do not allow local
councils to perform effectively.

Haque (1999) argues that the citizen charter appears to have a political agenda to overcome the
problem of diminishing public trust in governance and seeks to resolve the legitimacy crisis of
the state by redefining citizens as customers or consumers and offering great choices or options
to them.

McGuire (2001) describes that citizen's charter is simply a quality assurance strategy that offers a
type of consumer guarantee and points out that service charter programmes have incorporated a
range of quality assurance techniques including setting service standard, consultative
mechanisms, providing information to citizens and clients, complaints and redress mechanisms
and quality award.

Dreary(2005), stated that citizen charter is seen as a powerful tool for improving standard of
public services as instrument for achieving greater accountability and transparency in service
delivery and a means of reinforcing democratic principles by empowering citizens. Charters can
take many different forms but most of them display at least some of the characteristics of 'soft'
contracts, breaches of which may give rise to financial and other penalties but seldom have legal
consequences.

Keat (1994) argues that citizen charter seemed to envisage the citizen primarily as a consumer
and could be tending to substitute consumer style rights for political and legal rights.

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Shah (2006) has showed that for countries with high incidence of corruption and poor quality of
governance, institutions for exacting accountability such as the citizen charter should be
strengthened.

Jamil and Dhakal (2010) examined the implementation of citizen's charter in municipalities in
Nepal with reference to citizen's satisfaction and service quality. They found that citizens do not
have much knowledge of the charter, and this indicates that efforts to inform the public about the
charter were not effective. The study found that although officials are easily accessible or with
some difficulty, citizens need to be persuaded to participate for implementing the charter
effectively. Therefore, the introduction of citizen's charter in Nepal has offered scope for
improvement in municipal services which, in turn, has enhanced satisfaction among the public
towards the quality of services provided by municipalities.

Nayem (2010) analysed the implementation of citizen's charter in an Upazila Land Office in
Bangladesh. The study begins with the assumption that the introduction of citizen's charter has
created an opportunity for local people to participate and identify their needs and preferences.
Ideally, it was expected to enhance the extent of democratization which, in turn, would
strengthen accountability to citizens. It was found that the Upazila Land Office has limited
capacity to implement citizen's charter because the officials were not equipped with the training
required to implement it successfully. The problem was exacerbated by two other factors: lack of
access to public officials and the absence of political will to implement the citizen's charter.
Other problems associated with citizen's charters identified by residents of Bangladesh include
the issue of awareness, lack of involvement of the public, inadequate number of employees,
corruption, and bureaucratic and political resistance.

2.2 Operational definition:

a) Citizen charter:

Citizen charter is a document which represents a systematic effort to focus on the commitment of
the organization towards its citizens. In this study, this term only includes citizen charter of
Dhaka North City Corporation.

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b) Quality of service delivery:

Quality of service is an assessment of how well a delivered service conforms to the clients‘
expectations. In this study, quality of service delivery means awareness about citizen charter,
timeliness, responsiveness and friendliness, access to information, usefulness of information,
access to concerned officials, treat all equally, cost effective service and effective complaint
system.

c) Satisfaction:

According to Oxford Dictionary, satisfaction is the fulfilment of one‘s wishes, expectations, or

needs, or the pleasure derived from this. In this study, satisfaction means getting quality of
service delivery.

d) Income:

Income is money that an individual or business receives in exchange for providing a good or
service or through investing income. In this study, income indicates only the income of upper
and middle class citizens.

e) Social class:

On the basis of people‘s income, and wealth, their occupation and status, there are three types of
social classes in Bangladesh. These are upper class, middle class and lower class. In this study,
social class includes only the upper and middle class citizens.

f) Gender:

Gender is the modern term for sex where it does not mean sexuality but refers only to the
distinction between women and men (Hofstede 1998). In this study, gender is considered as both
male and female.

g) Age:

Age is an approximate measure of an individual‘s position within the life cycle, consisting of
different stages. In this study, age includes young, middle, and old aged people.

21 | P a g e
 h) Occupation:

Occupation is a person‘s usual or principal work or business, especially as a means of earning a

living. In this study, occupation includes the occupation of upper and middle class people.

i) Education:

Education has been considered as one of the important socio-economic factors which exerts very
special role to determine the personal characteristics. In this study, education indicates low
(literate- lower secondary), medium (secondary level- higher secondary), high (graduate and
above) educated people.

Chapter: 03 Research Methodology

The research methodology comprises of three parts which is explained below:

• Pre-fieldwork phase which comprises of problem identification, literature review, development

of indicators etc.

• Field work phase which comprises of data collection in identified indicators.

• Post field work phase focuses on analysis and interpretation of data and report writing.

i. Pre-Field Work Phase:

This phase comprise of problem identification and set the research objectives based on relevant
scientific literatures, text books, papers, articles and internet sources. The questionnaire has been
designed for both upper and middle class citizens of Dhaka North City Corporation. The
questionnaire is designed according to the research objectives and research questions.

ii. Field Work Phase:

This is second data collection phase. The purpose of conducting the field work is to collect the
required data in order to assess whether income, social class, gender, age, occupation and
education influence citizen‘s satisfaction and their knowledge about citizen charter and its

22 | P a g e
services. Basically this involved the collection of primary data. This was achieved through the
questionnaire for both upper and middle class citizens of Dhaka North City Corporation.

3.1 Research Design:

This study is basically focused on effectiveness of citizen charter providing quality of service
delivery to citizens. The approach and strategies applied in this research to analyse whether
income, social class, gender, age, occupation and education influence citizen‘s satisfaction and
their knowledge about citizen charter and its services. To achieve this, in this research both
qualitative and quantitative research design was used. The qualitative research design was used
as research was conducted in its natural setting and mainly to have descriptive information
regarding the impact of Citizen Charter on quality service delivery .The quantitative research
design was used to analyse the data and to map the exact figures.

In this research both the qualitative and Quantitative research designs were used in order to
compliment to each other or to overcome the disadvantage of each method.

3.2 Research Method:

This research is conducted by using the survey method. This means any procedure which
consists of asking the respondents to answer some questions. It can take various forms but for
this study, a questionnaire was prepared for the primary data collection tool.

3.3 Research area:

Research area is covered the two wards (wards 32 and 33) of Dhaka North City Corporation,
Ward 32 for upper class and ward 33 for middle class citizens of DNCC.

3.4 Sampling Method:

Purposive sampling method was used to select the sample. The dimension of analysis in the
study is the citizens of Dhaka North City Corporation. For this, purposive sampling method was
used to select the sample. In purposive sampling, we selected samples with a purpose in mind.
We found one or more specific predefined groups that we were seeking.

23 | P a g e
3.5 Sample Size:

In this study, the respondents of this research were collected from the two wards of Dhaka North
City Corporation (wards 32 and 33). The population were being divided into two sub-groups:
upper and middle class citizens. A group of samples of 100 respondents were purposively
selected from both social classes, 50 respondents from upper class and 50 respondents from
middle class.

3.6 Data Collection procedures:

To collect the data, a team of 10 people had gone out covering 20 units (i.e. citizens) each per
day. This means that the total samples of 100 citizens were collected within 5 days.

3.7 Data Collection instruments:

Both primary and secondary sources of data were collected in order to achieve the real facts
about this research. The data for the study were obtained from various sources including
documents, articles, thesis materials, questionnaire and observation etc. The questionnaire
contained around 100 questions (a combination of open, closed and mixed-ended questions to
maximize efficiency in data analysis), with certain warm-ups questions placed at the beginning
such as the participant‘s age, gender etc.

3.8 Sources of Data:

Two kinds of data were analysed in this paper. They were the……………………………..

(i) Primary Data:

The particular sources which are used for this study are Primary data. Primary data were original
data gathered by researcher for the research project. The primary data needed for this study were
collected through questionnaire with upper and middle class respondents.

(ii) Secondary Data:

Secondary data were gathered often in the form of raw data and published materials. The
secondary data for this study were collected from various books, dissertations, publications,
journals and reports on websites and government documents etc. Secondary resources were

24 | P a g e
mainly used to understand the need of Citizen Charter for providing quality service delivery by
analysing definitions offered by various scholars. Moreover, the secondary resources helped us
in preparing theoretical framework for this study.

3.9 Data Analysis and Presentation procedure:

All the data collected were transcribed into excel texts to ease the data analysis. Then data were
further interpreted. They are presented in edited, tabulated and classified form in this paper. The
data were analysed by using simple and suitable mathematical tools.

Chapter: 04 The Concepts/ theories of the Study

4.1 Citizen Charter: The Concept

Citizen charter is a document or public accord in which responsibilities of a government

department/ organization to its clients are mentioned. Also what are the policies and procedure of
department, grievances redress mechanisms, expectation from clients etc. are discussed. In
modern days public service is gradually evolving toward citizen centric model. Citizens are
customers of all kind of public service, so it is responsibility of government to ensure efficient
public service delivery where highest standards of transparency, accountability, smooth
functioning, grievance redress are kept in mind. Different departments of government are now- a
-days being encouraged to prepare their citizen charter. In preparation mode all stakeholders‘
participation like top and middle management, staff, citizens and others is equally important to
periodic review of charter and assurance of its implementation by appointing concerned officers.
This business-customer model in public administration is now vigorously being pursued by
government for ensuring citizen‘s participation, decentralization and transparency.

Citizens‘ Charters initiative is a response to the quest for solving the problems which a citizen
encounters, day in and day out, while dealing with the organizations in getting public services.

A good Citizen‘s Charter should have the following components:-

25 | P a g e
  Vision and Mission Statement of the Organization.

 Details of business transacted by the Organization.

 Details of ‗Citizens‘ or ‗Clients‘·

 Statement of services including standards, quality, timeframe.

 Information about-how / where to go to get the services?

 Details of grievance redress mechanism.

 Expectations from the ‗Citizens‘ or ‗Clients‘.

 Opportunity to choose alternative services.

 Measurable standard for service delivery

4.2 Citizens Satisfaction: conceptual issues

In NPM era, citizens are no more just members of a state rather they are customers to the
government. So success of any public organization largely depends on citizens‘ perception or
whether they are satisfied with its services. But the word ‗satisfaction‘ is a relative concept and it
can be theorized based on various standards. Satisfaction has close association with
‗Dissatisfaction‘. However satisfaction/dissatisfaction is not an emotion, but the evaluation of an
emotion. Several definitions of satisfaction have been offered by scholars. Anderson defines
satisfaction in accordance with the two broad classes of customer experience--- transaction
specific experiences and cumulative experiences. With transaction specific experiences,
citizens/customer satisfaction refers to the post choice evaluative judgement of a specific
purchase occasion, wherein cumulative experience, customer satisfaction is the result of
customers‘ evaluation of total purchase and consumption experience over time. There are three
levels of customers‘ satisfaction------------------------------

 Negative disconfirmation happens when the level or quality of service is worse than the
expectation of customer.
 Simple disconfirmation happens when the level of services matches to the individual
expectation.

26 | P a g e
  Positive disconfirmation happens when the level or quality of service is better than
expectation by the individual

Determinants of satisfaction:

Reliability Situational
Factors

Responsiveness

Perceive service Customer

quality Satisfaction
Assurance

Empathy Personal
Factors

Price
Tangibles

Figure: 02 Service Quality and Customer Satisfaction (adopted from Bateson &Hoffman 1999)

Several theoretical approaches are used to understand the process through which
customers/citizens form satisfaction judgement. They are the value-percept theory, attribution
theory, equity theory, contrast theory, performance-importance theory, negativity theory, two
factors theory etc. Among all these theories, three main theories can give the theoretical
foundation of this paper. Briefly they are discussed below-----------------

(a) Two-factor theory:

This theory states that customers can be satisfied and dissatisfied with a product or a service at
the same time, because a product or service has different aspects. In one aspect they may be
satisfied or in another aspect they may be dissatisfied.

(b) Dual-factor theory:

27 | P a g e
 Swan and combs developed this theory. In this theory, factors or determinants are renamed as-
Instrumental performance and expressive performance. Instrumental performance relates to
physical performance of the product or service. Whereas expressive performance relates to
psychological aspect and it is necessary component of customer satisfaction. Without satisfied
in expressive performance customers will be remained dissatisfied regardless satisfied in
physical performance.

(c) Comparison theory:

This theory can be better understood through a framework of confirmation/disconfirmation.

According to the framework customers have a set of pre-established standards in their mind at
the time of purchasing a product or service. The level of customer satisfaction is the result of
comparison of these standards. If present standard fails to meet previous standard, then
customers will be left dissatisfied.

4.3 Theory of Good Governance:

As a theoretical construct ‗Governance‘ differs among researchers depending on their ideological

conviction. Few years before NGO and other development organization added new connotation
in governance idea and this new idea is now popularly known as ―Good Governance‖. Good
governance is about the quality of governance which expresses itself through such attributes such
as accountability, transparency, efficiency, empowerment, participation, sustainability, equity
and justice. APJ Abdul Kalam (2014) in his own way tried to define good governance in his
famous book ―Governance for Growth in India‖. According to him - good governance is
identified by the way it is proactive and responsive to the needs of the people and helps them
lead a life that is morally upright, intellectually superior, and leads to an enriched quality of life.

UNDP identified some key elements of good governance. These elements can be listed as-------

(i) Participation (ii) Rule of law (iii) Transparency (iv) Effectiveness and Efficiency

(v) Responsiveness (vi) Consensus orientation (vii) Equity (viii) Accountability

(ix) Strategic Vision.

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For ensuring good governance national governments pursue the broader goals of economic and
sustaiable social development, while local governments aim to manage local areas and provide
basic services to its residence. Urban governance as a part of local governance has been assumed
to manage rapidly growing urban areas with the provision of participation,capacity building and
better service delivery. The ―Better Cities Network of East and South-Asian Cities‖ used the
following criteria for assessing the performance of local governments toward good governance.
They are the-------------------

(i) Accountability (ii) Responsiveness (iii) Local Government-citizen interaction

(iv) Networking (v) Public-private partnership (vii) Decentralized Management

(viii) Human Resource Mangement —————————— (source: Mehta, n.d)

Therefore, good governance practices in urban government or city corporation, has concerns
regading better public service delivery through well-coordinated cooperation with all
stakeholders in order to achieve intended development goal. As performance of a city
corporation or any public organization to a larger extent depends on governance structures or
elements which are stated earlier, it can be said that good governance has inseperable
relationship with quality of public service delivery. Thus good governance always encourages
innovative techniques or mechanisms that can contribute in promoting social and economic well
being through improved service delivery. Citizen Charter is a new device or tool under the
umbrella of good governance to ensure efficiency and effectiveness in public services. The
principles of good governance like transparency, accountabilty are key features of Citizen
Charter. On the other hand CC promotes good governance through the provision of specifying all
the necessary standards about the available services of the public institutions, better control and
monitoring the performance of administration, provision of citizen‘s complaints and redressal
mechanism, listing of documents and so on.

4.4 New Public Management: NPM is a management philoshopy used by government

since the 1980s to modernise the public sector. First it was coined by Christoper Hood in his
article ―A Public Management for all seasons‖. According to Pollitt, NPM has variously been
defined as a vision, an ideology or a bundle of particular management approaches and
techniques. It is a kind of administrative philoshopy based on two fields of discourse- public

29 | P a g e
choice and managerialism. NPM is not static rather it is associated with the wide use of public-
private partnership(ppp), provision of outsourcing, improvement of information and
communication technology etc for getting better outputs and customer orientation. CC is
emerged as such reform instrument through NPM doctrine. Thus CC is presented as twin
outcomes of NPM and good governance.

Chapter: 05 Data Analysis, Findings and Discussion

5.1. Data presentation and analysis:

To achieve our research objectives we conducted a field survey in two selected areas. This
survey is mainly done by filling up 100 questionnaires. Besides we observed the service delivery
process in zone office 3 and 5 under the DNCC‘s headquarter. During that time, we also talked
with some people like service receivers and higher officials so that we can check the validity and
credibility of our primary findings drawn from questionnaires. Now all these primary data are
presented and analysed here for moving to findings and discussion.

For better understanding but free from any complexity, this section rearranged all questions
under the ambit of four research questions.

(i) Basic research question: 1-Are the City dwellers aware and knowledgeable about
the CC in DNCC?

Generally Knowledge refers to awareness, familiarity or understanding of information, facts

and skills etc. People acquire it through experience or education from different sources.
However, knowledge about CC is the outcome of the – how people perceive, discover or learn
it.

30 | P a g e
 Q.09. Have you heard about the introduction of CC in DNCC?

Heard about the introduction of CC in DNCC

YES No

32%

68%

Figure: 03

In this question we get positive answers from 32 out of 100 respondents. This means more than
half of the people did not hear that CC was introduced in DNCC, and this is still working. Such
ignorance may be for the result of two causes. One is that City Corporation has failure to reach at
the general people with proper information channelling through proper mechanism. Otherwise
Citizens are unaware or reluctant to know about changes which are occurring in their
environment or in City Corporation. Details answer of this question can be sorted out from
successive questions.

 Q. 10. If yes, how did you know about this?

From previous question it appears 32% citizens know about CC. They know it through different
ways. 66% respondents have directly seen the hoarding-board while 27% have information
because their family members and friends have knowledge, and as usual newspaper and print
media informed 7% respondents.

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 Q.11. Do you have proper information about the services of the CC of this city
corporation?

Proper information about the Services of DNCC mentioned in CC.

Not at all-
69%

Absolutely
Partly-27%
-4%

Figure: 04

Only 32% respondents know about the introduction of CC. Though CC contains the service
names but it is not necessary that only those people who have knowledge about CC know the
names of services. Without proper understanding of CC one might have some understandings on
services. Thus we find the above result. But it is notable that only few people absolutely know
the service names and majority (69%) lag behind in such case. It needs to mention here that
DNCC provides around 30 services to its citizens.

 Knowledge about Citizen Charter and its Service;

Result of this point is the major focus in this section. By calculating data knowledge about CC
and its services can be summarized with different perspectives. Such as –gender, age, social
class, income, education and occupation are the independent variables and they differentiate the
level of knowledge on CC and its services in terms of their own implications.

32 | P a g e
 Table: 01 – Knowledge about CC and its services (with different aspects)

Subject Have Knowledge about CC and its Services (with percentage)

Gender Male- 30% Female- 11%

Income Upper- 33% Middle- 35%

Age Young- 35% Middle Aged-22% Old Aged- 7%

Education Low- 6% Medium- 24% High-33%

Social Class Upper-32% Middle- 20%

Occupation Upper - 32% Middle- 36%

Here we can see different levels of knowledge in terms of different considerable issues. First in
gender perspective- the result shows female percentage is quite lower than their male partner.
There is a logical reason for such kind of gap. While conducting the field survey we found that
most of our female respondents are housewives. They get little opportunities to interact within
outside the family environment. If any kind of service is needed for them, the head of their
household or male members go to the city corporation and receive it on behalf of female
member. Thus patriarchal attitude or practices in some cases maintain knowledge gap between
male and female regarding CC and services of DNCC.

Second, Education also shapes the knowledge about CC and its services which is dependent
variable in this paper. People who are illiterate or have completion of lower secondary keep little
knowledge in this subject. Their percentage is only 6%. On the other hand 24% among the
people having lower secondary or higher secondary certificate know the CC and its services. But
people having graduate degree or more than above are in a little better position. Among them
33% have knowledge about CC and some services provided by the DNCC. Thus this result
approves the positive correlation between education and knowledge which is usually thought in
any kind of research area.

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Third age factor is also a responsible variable. This paper tries to reflect opinion of different age
groups. Among young people 35% is known about CC and services of the city corporation and
such percentages for middle aged and old-aged groups are respectively 22% and 7%. This result
indicates young generation are more knowledgeable about CC and services. In regard this issue
different proposition can be drawn. First of all young respondents prioritize communication and
they have inquisitive mind to know about the new, while middle aged respondents know about
CC due to their necessity but they are not so curious like young respondents. At the same time
old aged respondents are not aware because they have neither any necessity nor any curious
mind.

Fourth Social class influences the ratio of knowledge distribution. This study selected sampling
people from two classes- upper and middle class and discarded lower class. By calculating
numbers we see 32% respondents of upper class and 20% of middle class know about CC and its
services. In operational definition, determinants of social class are already given. Upper class has
more knowledge than middle class because they get easier access in any government offices like
DNCC. Besides access of higher education or often ownership of private companies or
businesses that are directly or indirectly affected by DNCC‘s initiative, facilitate their
understanding or knowledge about CC and corporation‘s services. Moreover some respondents
who participated in this study frequently go to abroad. Thus from developed countries they can
experience new initiatives as like as CC before replication of similar initiatives in our country.

Fifth income has no longer less importance compare to other variables. 33% respondents who
earn more or belong in upper income possess the knowledge regarding CC and its services. In
opposite side middle income people are 35% in numbers on this issue. So here we see that
middle- income earning people are a little bit more in number. This slight difference occurs by
dint of influences of other factors. The result under income variable may contradict with result
under social class variable. But after taking the similar grounds of above-mentioned two -factor
theory, this kind of inconsistency can be resolved. That is to say in knowledge perspective one
may have some knowledge and at the same time have some ignorance about a single issue. Due
to this fact the result of income and social class appear as little contradictory. However middle
income people in Bangladesh are always first in bringing any kind of change. Our history shows
that all greater revolutions such as language movement, liberation war, and movement against

34 | P a g e
autocratic government were possible because of involvement of middle-income people. The
richer section gave their attention only in those cases that could affect their interest. This
tendency of middle-income earning people may motivate them to acquire knowledge regarding
CC and its services. Another factor is also responsible for shaping this result. Normally richer
section do not have the need to go to the DNCC physically, employees under working them
accomplish their tasks. So they face some lacking in real knowledge. But middle -income
earning people often physically go to the DNCC, so their knowledge is a little bit high. However
both upper and middle income earning people are far behind from sound knowledge about CC
and its services and this can be proved through the above-mentioned results.

Sixth there is also significant association between occupation and knowledge about CC,
including its services. From our questionnaire analysis it seems that data are collected from
different occupational groups for example- businessman, lawyer, doctor, accountants, executive
of private company, teacher, police, and public servants. All these groups can further be
classified as working and retired. Some respondents are also unemployed in their occupational
status and most of them are mainly students. 32% respondents among higher jobs/ businesses
groups are knowledgeable about CC and its service and this percentage is 36% for those who are
working in mid- level jobs/ businesses in terms of salary, grade, position etc. Generally a belief
works that top level officers are more educated. This is almost true but problem arises here
because they have lower acquaintance with CC and corporation‘s services based on our findings.
This result is little contradictory with the analysis related to education and knowledge. But some
causes have to take into consideration. For instance most of the upper-level occupational groups
fortunately or unfortunately belong in retired section and most of all are businessman. Some
businessmen know about the services provided by DNCC but they do not have any idea about
CC. On the other hand some of the mid- level occupational groups are working in government
offices. Therefore they have some ideas about CC and services of DNCC. Almost all housewives
do not have any knowledge on this issue and even students fall in this group which makes us
surprised.

(ii) Specific research Question: 1- Can Dhaka North City Corporation provide quality
service delivery to its citizens and are the citizens satisfied with it?

35 | P a g e
In rapidly changing world Citizens demand both higher quantity and quality services from their
governments. One can easily measure quantity of services but measurement of quality is a
daunting task. Because quality measurement varies in respect of nature of services, personal
preferences and also the process through which service is delivered. For resolving this problem
this study specified some criteria or determinants of quality services in its operational definition.
These determinants are ——————————————————

(a) Awareness about citizen charter (b) Timeliness (c) Responsiveness and friendliness

(d) Access to information (e) Usefulness of information (f) Access to concerned officials

(g) Equal treatment (h) Cost effective service and effective complaint system.

Simply measurement of service quality looks for the degree to which a provided activity
promotes customer / citizen satisfaction. This paper explores quality of DNCC‘s services by
taking the help of qualitative judgement. It will not occupy any statistical term like Chi- square
or correlation. Because DNCC provides around 30 services, so it is very difficult to identify
quality of each service. For this reason this study receives generalised view from the service
receivers on the basis of qualitative judgement. If we occupied the quantitative judgement then
the respondents would be in fix. However some questions with their answers under this specific
question are being presented below.

Q. 12. Please mention how useful is the information given with regard to the service that
you are looking for?

The following result shows 28% people believe information given by DNCC regarding their
services is very useful , but 58% think it is little useful. And 14% do not know the usefulness of
information because they never got the service. If we take the opinion of majority it seems that
DNCC provides little useful information regarding its services. By taking this criterion service
quality of DNCC is negatively affected by lack of proper information. On the other hand DNCC
completely fails to reach at the 14% people with at least some service related basic information.

36 | P a g e
 Usefulness of information
Very useful Little useful Never got the services

14%

58%

28%

Figure: 05

 Q. 13. In your experience, how long time it takes to get services from the City
Corporation?

Timelines for getting services

17% As stipulated in the charter

24%

A little longer than the

stipulated time
59%
Too long time than the
stipulated time

Figure: 06

24% people get services as stipulated in CC. More than half of the people receive services at a
little longer than the stipulated time. On the other hand 17% people spend long time than the
stipulated time in CC. This result shows though DNCC fails to keep the given promises but its
efforts are not negligible. For ensuring stipulated timelines given in CC, DNCC is somewhat
successful in comparison to usefulness of information.
37 | P a g e
 Q. 14. If the service is delivered within the stipulate time, what mattered most?

Contributing factors for getting services within stipulated

time

71%

26%

3%

BY due process By personal access By bribing

Figure: 07

This question is mainly applicable for 24% people who gave their answer in question number 13.
When they were asked about -what factors help them for getting the services within the
stipulated time, majority confirmed that through institutional procedure they got services. Fewer
people took the help of bribery and around 26% utilised their personal access. That means 29%
had to follow the procedures outside the institutional rules. In question number 13 we found 24%
people got services within stipulated time. But answer of question14 further undermines its value
because it indicates that malpractices or kind of corruption involved with the acquirement of
services within stipulated time. So results related to stipulated time cannot verify the success of
DNCC‘s service quality under timeliness criteria.

 Q.15- If the service was not delivered within the stipulated time, what mattered most?
38 | P a g e
 Reasons for non-delivery of services within stipulated time
Series 1 Series 2 Series 3

44%
26% 30%

Incomplete
documents Lack of proper
others
information

Figure: 08

This question is applicable for those people who have the answers of too long time than the
stipulated time or little longer than the stipulated time in question no 13. Some reasons behind
non-delivery of services can be ascertained from their answers. Some respondents go to the
DNCC with incomplete document, so service providing officers face problems even though they
are more willed to serve citizens promptly. On the other hand due to lack of proper information
service receivers repeatedly go to the offices before the stipulated time. This kind of ignorance
negatively misguides their attitude to the DNCC‘s competence. However, other factors like, they
did not give bribery, no personal access or no lobbying with dalal (middle-man) worked for the
non-delivery of services within stipulated time.

 Q. 16. Do you think that you have access to information needed by you?

39 | P a g e
 Access to information
Yes No

19%

81%

Figure: 09

Answer of this question shows that majority people cannot access the information needed by
them. So DNCC fails to fulfil the criterion of access to information to its citizens. Similar
problems we faced because for making this research paper sound, some organizational data is
needed. But DNCC just gave us only a hard copy of CC. It did not give any core information
related to our topic. This problem exists because DNCC generally conducts no field research or
like any government organization, it likes to maintain secrecy.

 Q. 17. What is your experience in getting access to the concerned officials responsible
for service delivery?

Accessibility to the designated desk-staff and complain-officer

Accessible with persuasion Somewhat persuasion Easily accessible
To the designated To the
complain-officer in 19% designated
case the responsible desk-staff
des-staff
28%
3%

4%
68%

78%
Figure: 11
40 | P a g e
The chart shows that 68% respondents can easily get access to the designated desk-staff and 78%
get access to the designated complain-officer. Other two kinds of numerical data present that in
some cases respondents have to face difficulties but somehow they can overcome these
problems. That means majority have got access to the officers and staffs of DNCC. Even though
respondents have no easier access in information but they are better served in getting
accessibility of personnel. This is possible because employees and officers always come to the
offices. So in case of access to concerned officials DNCC is quite successful. This positive side
can shadow the other failures of DNCC.

 Q.18- How do officials treat you?

Treatment from officials of DNCC
12% 88%

Friendly Patron-client

Figure: 11

In an organization Patron- client relationship emerges when administration or management

becomes weak. This is one of the malpractices of bad-governance. But unfortunately the above
figure indicates that officials of DNCC highly practice this relationship. Only 12% respondents
receive friendly treatment from DNCC. So friendliness as a criteria of quality services is absent
in DNCC‘s organizational culture

 Questions related to Social class, promptness of officers and value for money:

Under this point three different questions and their numerical data are being analyzed. This
comprehensive analysis on three questions is done under a single point because answer of this
question is either yes or no. Now their answers can be given in the following table.

41 | P a g e
Table: 02- Social class, promptness of officers and value for money

Questions Yes No
19. Do the officials make any difference between the social classes 86% 14%
of people?
23. Do you think DNCC returns your money in terms of delivering 74% 26%
services?
26. Was the official prompt in providing services? 24% 76%

Q. no 19 touches an olden issue which has implication both in sociology and administrative
science. Respondents of this study strongly believe that social class determines how one will be
treated from officials of DNCC. 86% People ensure that there is institutional discrimination in
DNCC on the basis of social class. In our constitution there is a provision that all citizens in
respect of age, gender or race should be equally treated. But as a local government institution,
DNCC is far from this practice. This discriminatory practice based on social class is a major
hindrance for ensuring quality services in DNCC.

Q. no 23 exhibits the positive image of DNCC. Majority expresses their satisfaction in regard to
economic value of DNCC‘s services. So in economic value DNCC provides quality services.

Finally Q. no 26 reveals that 76% respondents think officials are prompt in providing services
but 24% respondents have opposite view. So if we stick up for the opinion of majority then the
above result vindicates that officials working in the DNCC are inefficient and unskilled. So this
shortcoming is also a barrier in providing quality services

So after summarizing all these questions under specific research question:-2 it appears that most
of the criteria of quality services do not match with the DNCC‘s services. DNCC has fulfilled
only two criteria- Access to concerned officials and value for money and in some cases
timeliness. This section gives no clear and straightforward answer regarding specific question no
02, rather it provides the foundation for reaching at the final conclusion. Half of the answer of
this question will be discussed in next two research questions.

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(iii) Specific research question; 02- Can the people make allegations to the authority
in case of irregularities in the delivery of services?

Effective complaint system is vital for ensuring organizational accountability and transparency.
When an organization is accountable to its service recipients it can earn feedback. Thus it can
easily resolve defects of its services. Now through a table and a chart we can analyse the real
conditions of complain system in DNCC

 Q. 25. In general, are the employees ready to hear customers’ problem?

Readiness of employees to hear customers' problem

Sometimes
Never
21%

79%

Figure: 12

Answer of this question reveals that DNCC‘s officials in most cases are not ready to hear
customers‘ problem. Only 27% people thought that officials are ready to hear their problems in
some cases. So it is a drawback for DNCC. Answer of this question also rectifies an issue related
to its success which is mentioned in question no 17. Q. 17 told that majority of the people get
access to concerned staffs and complain officials. But after presenting the result of Q. 25 it is

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obvious that respondents just get physical access to the officials but most often officials‘
behaviour dishearten them.

 Complain system:

Answer of question 20 and 21 give some ideas about complain system in DNCC.

Table: 03- Complain system in DNCC

Questions Yes No
20. In the case you did not receive proper service delivery; 22% 78%
did you get clear reason/ answer why it was not delivered?
21. In the case of non-delivery of service, did you manage 33% 67%
to lodge a complaint with the designated officer or other
concerned officials?

Answer of Q. 20 shows that majority get no clear reasons in case of improper delivery of
services. This issue reflect the lack of organizational accountability of DNCC. On the basis of
Q.22, 33% respondents managed to lodge a complaint but 67% respondents did not try it. After
making complain, only 31% got the services and 69% have not got yet. So it can be said that
DNCC has poor performance both in taking and solving complain. Due to poor performance in
complain system DNCC receives fewer feedback from its service recipients. Therefore provision
of quality services is greatly hampered.

(iv)Basic Research Question: 2- Can social class, income, age, gender, occupation and
education influence Citizens’ satisfaction and their Knowledge about its services?

Half of the answer of this question is already given in Basic Question 1, specific question 1 and
2. Influence of above mentioned variables in regard to knowledge on services are already
discussed. So here we will present and analyse numerical data only about the influence of
different variables on Citizens‘ satisfaction.

Satisfaction is a relative concept. For this reason satisfaction varies from person to person and
situation to situation. In operational definition, it was said that one will be satisfied if he gets

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quality services. For measuring service quality this study specified some criteria or determinants.
Thus determinants of quality services are the determinants of satisfaction. These determinants
can be shown in the following figure.

 Determinants of quality/ Satisfaction:

Cost -
Helpfulness effectiveness Responsive-
ness

Friendliness Promptness

Determinants of
Service Quality/
Satisfaction
Access to
concerned Equal
officials Treatment

Access to Effective
Information complaint
Timeliness

Figure: 13

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After calculating the satisfaction related numerical data we can draw the following table———

Subject Have satisfaction ( Respondents with numbers & percentage)

Gender Male (50)- 53% Female (50)- 65%

Income Upper (50)- 51% Middle (50)- 62%

Age Young (40)- 55% Middle Aged (49)- Old Aged (11)- 64%
58%

Education Illiterate-lower secondary Secondary-higher Graduate & above (39)-

(19)- 67% secondary(42)-56% 515

Social Class Upper (50)-53% Middle (50)- 59%

Occupation Upper – 54% Middle - 58%

Table: 04 - Influence of different variables on satisfaction regarding DNCC’s service

This section often recalls the results of table: 1, 2 and 3 because satisfaction and knowledge are
closely intertwined. First gender perspective represents 53% among male and 65% among
female respondents are satisfied with DNCC‘s services. That means female are more satisfied
than their male partners, although they have less knowledge about the services while male are in
better position. Thus it can be assumed that knowledge negatively affects the level of
satisfaction. Apart from this straight forward linkage there are some contributory factors
remained. While analysing the data it come into sight that most of the female respondents know
those service names that are delivered by DNCC at the door of citizens. Because they always
stay in home and few female respondents get the opportunity to visit at the DNCC‘s office. Such
kinds of services are street lightening, drainage scheme, disposal of wastes, or mosquito killing.
All these services preserve the collective interest. As opposed to experiences of female, male
respondents experience those services that preserve both collective and individual interest. So
when they shared their overall experiences they mostly prioritized their individual experiences. It

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can also happen that DNCC gives more emphasis on those services that affect collective interest,
but little a bit it neglects the quality of those services that affect individual interest. Thus due to
variation in collective and individualistic view satisfaction differs between male and female
respondents.

Second Education represents 67% respondents among illiterate, 56% among secondary or
higher secondary passed and 51% among graduate or above degree entitled respondents are
satisfied with delivery of services. Here illiterate people are more satisfied except their low level
of knowledge. While hearing the names of services from us, they became astonished because
they thought that DNCC‘s functions are not broad as like as our talking. So after knowing the
services‘ name they appreciate the DNCC‘ services with consideration of their numbers but
avoidance of the quality. However with the increase of education level number of satisfied
people subsequently decreases. So education level greatly influences number of satisfied
persons.

Third age as an independent variable differentiates the level of satisfaction among three groups.
55% young people out of 44 are satisfied. Middle aged satisfaction percentage is 58% out of 49
people, while in old-aged group this is 64% out of 11respondents. In this result we see that the
increase of age positively influence the increase of satisfaction. Satisfaction tends to improve as
people get older. Satisfaction seems to follow a cyclical pattern where people of different ages
have different position in cycle. Normally young people desire more. For this reason they believe
DNCC should improve its service quality. Over the life time people move, become older and
experiences the reality. So day by day their expectation decreases and thus satisfaction rises.
Similar thing happens in case of DNCC‘s services.

Fourth social class has significant impact on measuring citizens‘ satisfaction to the DNCC‘s
services. Data show that 53% upper class respondents out of 50 and 59% middle class
respondents out of 50 people are satisfied with DNCC‘s services. Upper class knows the name of
services, so their expectation level is high. Moreover they have the ability to make criticism. But
middle class is little a bit aback from upper class. Their knowledge is somewhat not so high thus
expectation level is also in same level. But difference between upper and middle class
satisfaction percentage is not so notable, so search of potential causes ultimately brings
consolidated results.

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Fifth income is one of the primary factors in measuring satisfaction level related to DNCC‘s
services. Data represents 51% of higher income group out of 50 and 62% of middle income
earning group out of 50 people are satisfied with DNCC‘s services. This may happen in
association with the payment of taxes. Normally richer section pays more taxes than medium
earning people to the City Corporation. Provision of high taxes for higher income bothers the
upper income people. Besides their personal income generating sources like their private
company, businesses are directly affected by amount of taxes paid to the DNCC. In some cases
they need to seek licenses for different businesses or building of houses or other activities. So
they expect more from DNCC. On the other side medium earning people are not outside of
payment of taxes but they need to receive relatively simple services like birth certificate, death
certificate, community development services etc. Different researches have been made for
searching the relationship between income and satisfaction. The researchers of this kind of
researches have familiarity with the term ―unhappy Growth Paradox‖. Like ―Unhappy Growth
paradox‖ the above mentioned result implies that the relationship between income and
satisfaction is more complex than basic economic theory suggests. This complex relationship
could occur in this study while in forming the relationship between income and satisfaction with
DNCC‘s services.

Sixth Occupation has multiple effects on satisfaction with DNCC‘s services. From each group
(upper and middle) 50 respondents out 0f 100 gave their opinion. Among upper occupational
group 54% respondents are satisfied while in mid-level this is 58%. This slight difference
between two groups occurred because result under this variable has close link with income and
social class. So here reasons for this result are as same as the reasons specified under income and
social class variable. For avoiding overlapping, now our discussion is moving to the next section.

(v) Presentation and Analysis of Observation result:

Besides questionnaire, we also used observation method for carrying out this research. For this
purpose we have gone to the head office of DNCC. But after going there, we saw that most of
the offices of DNCC are dispersed based on the service names. So we were not able to go all the
offices under DNCC. But hopefully we observed those offices that provide most of the services.

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They are the zone office-3 and 5. Here we observed the way of delivering services. However the
result of observation is that—

 No single Citizen‘s Charter was hanging at the front of DNCCs office rather at the front of
each department it was hanged on a board.
 Most of the officials of DNCC were at their desk. So officials could be easily accessible by
citizens
 We did not found any obstacles that could restrain citizens from making complain to the
officers.
 The contact number of complain officers were listed into DNCC‘s Citizen Charter.

Now what are the meanings that we can sort out from these results? At first it is mentionable
that DNCC somehow ensures the accessibility of citizens to its officials. In questionnaire
analysis we have found same result. DNCC keeps the complaint system formally but through
observation we cannot demonstrate whether it is properly working or malfunctioning because it
requires in depth analysis of various aspect. For example if DNCC is somehow delivering quality
of services, then why people need to complain?

The above-mentioned results also show that people could make complain. Here it is necessary to
compare this result with the result of questionnaire. From questionnaire analysis we find only
33% people can make complain to the complaint- officers. So this result is contradictory with the
answers of Citizens. But it can also assume- there might be other invisible factors that restrain
citizens from making complain, and it was not possible for us to observe that kind of invisible
factors.

Finally from our observation it is obvious that DNCC is deprived from the benefits of
centralization. Dispersion of offices can bother the service receivers. In fact it was also
embarrassing for carrying out observation dully.

5.2 Findings:

After data processing and analysing we can now draw some findings. Basically findings are the
core content for any kind of research paper. In his section gist of this paper is ready to present.
This section first presents the findings of each aspect or part separately. Then it will summarize

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them and give a broader statement. But this part will briefly present the result because in data
presentation and analysis they were detailed enough.

(i) Implication of Citizen Charter on service delivery:

The main objectives of this paper are to search- whether CC affects the quality of DNCC‘s
services. In this regard different kinds of investigation are already done. This study tries to assess
the implication of CC on DNCC‘s services through identifying two aspects of provided services.
First one is the quality of services and another is the satisfaction of service receivers after the
initiation period of Citizen Charter.

 Findings on quality of services:

In operational definition some criteria of quality services are already specified. These criteria
can be recalled here for our convenience. They are the Knowledge about Citizen Charter,
timeliness, responsiveness, friendliness, access to information, access to concerned officials,
equal treatment, cost effective service and effective complaint system. From previous data
processing and analysis part we find that in almost all cases Citizen‘s Charter fails to bring any
significant improvement in service delivery. Because, most of these criteria have little match
with services quality of DNCC.

The main purpose of CC is making governmental organizations more committed to the citizens
of a country or a nation. This provision will be fruitful only when Citizens will be aware about
their rights. In our data analysis it seemed that only 32% respondents heard about the
introduction of CC in DNCC‘s offices. So in this case CC finds little opportunity to affect the
quality of service. Because People are not aware about the provisions specified in CC, So how it
will be able to make its implication on service delivery? In knowledge about service criteria
same results have been found. Similarly according to presented data all criteria are little met up
by DNCC‘s services except the criteria of access to concerned officials, cost effective service
and complaint systems. But positive results of these criteria are often contradictory. Because
results of observation show that no significant restraining factors can create obstacles to the
effective complaint system but from respondents we find opposite view. In informal interview

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one respondent told he came DNCC for collecting Birth Certificate. He got it but he believed that
it was possible by dint of his personal access. Both in questionnaire and informal interview
majority people acknowledged that they did not find the most of all above mentioned criteria in
DNCC‘s service delivery.

But from observation and questionnaire analysis DNCC receives some success in the criteria of
accessibility to concerned officials and cost effective services. So DNCC‘s services meet only
two criteria. The most alluring information should be shared in this regard. In our informal
interview some officials also acknowledged that DNNC is failing to provide quality of services
to its citizens. By comparing the numbers of attained and unattained criteria it seems that
DNCC‘s service quality is not up to the marked.

 Findings on Satisfaction of Service receivers:

In operational definition, it was said that -one person will be satisfied if he gets quality services.
The finding of previous point is that DNCC‘s service quality is not up to the marked. So on the
basis of operational definition it can be assumed that Citizens are not satisfied regarding the
service quality of DNCC. In data presentation and analysis section specific research question 1
and 2 gave different Citizens‘ satisfaction related results under different sub- questions.
Unfortunately all answers of these questions approved that citizens are not satisfied with
DNCC‘s services. But they also presented some exceptions. Few people also gave positive
opinion. But majority were in negative view. In informal interview some respondents gave
straightforward answer that they were not satisfied with DNCC‘s services. However it needs to
mention that in case of access to concerned officials and value for money they are quite satisfied.
So it is not justified to say that service receivers or citizens are completely dissatisfied with
DNCC‘s services. However in this situation we can take the help of two-factor theory and dual-
factor theory. More information about these theories was previously detailed in theoretical
framework.

According to two- factor theory one can be satisfied with a product or service at the same time
because a product or service has different aspects. After taking this view it can be said that
DNCC‘s services have also different aspects. In case of DNCC, Citizens may be satisfied and

51 | P a g e
dissatisfied with the services at the same time. In fact findings also indicate the same thing.
Although Citizens are dissatisfied in regard to some criteria of quality services but they express
positive opinion regarding value for money and access to concerned officials. So taking the view
of two- factor theory respondents of this study are both satisfied and dissatisfied at the same
time. But ratio of satisfaction and dissatisfaction is unknown.

On the other hand dual-factor theory says that there are two kinds of satisfaction.-Satisfaction
with physical performance of services and expressive performance or psychological aspects. It
assumes that without satisfaction on expressive performances regardless satisfaction on physical
performance one will be remained dissatisfied. In this study it is appeared that majority of
Citizens acknowledge that DNCC ensures value for money. Normally value for money refers to
the physical quality of services. This means DNCC ensures the physical performance of its
services. Thus citizens are satisfied with its physical performance but due to poor performance in
psychological aspects like unfriendly behaviour they are not satisfied with expressive
performance. So in accordance with the assumption of dual- factor theory- due to dissatisfaction
in expressive performance respondents are not satisfied with DNCC‘s services regardless their
satisfaction in physical performance.

But now a problem arises, which theories findings are acceptable? But if we apply both theories
propositions after making critical analysis we will find a common view that both theories
apprehend the problems of dissatisfaction. So service receivers or citizens are to some extent
dissatisfied with DNCC‘s service delivery.

Finally we got the findings of two aspects which were selected to evaluate the implication of CC
on service delivery. Findings of both aspects show that in current situation Citizens are getting
little quality services, so they are less satisfied with its services. These findings mainly clarify
that Citizen‘s Charter of DNCC is failed to fulfil its provision, because ensuring quality services
and respect of the citizens‘ satisfaction are also the primary objectives of its initiation. After
formal launching of CC, no significant improvement has been possible in regard to citizens‘
satisfaction and quality of DNCC‘s service delivery. But there is a limitation in showing these
findings in a single statement because this study collected and analysed recent data of DNCC. It
has no organizational information about before of the introduction of CC. So it gets little

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opportunity to compare the after and before conditions of service delivery and thus measuring
the implication has some deficiency.

(ii)Hypothesis:

Before collecting raw data from the field, a hypothesis was suggested in this study as a possible
explanation for some facts or phenomena. These facts are about whether some aspects such as
gender, education, occupation, age, income and social class have some influences in shaping
Citizens knowledge and their satisfaction regarding services, if yes, then why they make
influences? Or in what ways they do it. In this regard as a researcher we have some personal
experiences or understanding about our society and organization. On the basis of experiences and
understanding a hypothesis was stated through a single statement in this paper. This statement is-
---―Citizens‘ satisfaction and their knowledge about Citizen Charter and its services are
influenced by income, social class, age, gender, occupation, and education‖.

There are different statistical tests are available for accepting or rejecting hypothesis
pronounced in any kind of research paper. But usages of these tests vary in terms of the nature of
research topic. In social science related research papers researchers often face limitation in
following any particular statistical test because some issues cannot be quantified rather they
require qualitative judgment. In this paper although most of the results are expressed through
percentage but their real interpretation is done through qualitative judgment. Also the hypothesis
of this study covers only those respondents who are knowledgeable and satisfied with DNCC‘s
services. Though the findings of our research is that majority of respondents are no longer
satisfied and knowledgeable about CC and its services.

So here we are testing the research hypothesis based on our previous analysis part which was
mainly qualitative in nature with some numerical values.

In data presentation and analysis part, two sections named as Basic research question 1 and 2
directly gave the answers of the question- Whether Citizen‘s satisfaction and their knowledge
about CC are being influenced by gender, age, education, income, social class, and occupation.
The results of that part indicate that it is quite obvious that these independent variables have
significant influences on Citizens‘ satisfaction and their knowledge about CC and its services.

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In gender variable the result was the -women are less knowledgeable about CC and its services
but they are more satisfied with services. On the other hand male respondents are a little bit more
knowledgeable but their satisfaction is lower than female respondents. This variation may cause
due to variation in their education, attitude or the accessibility in public places.

Second age variable also gave the same result. Young people were more dissatisfied and
knowledgeable, middle- aged people were in mid-position and the old- aged people were
somewhat satisfied but have little knowledge. The possible results of this variation were due to
their expectation level, understanding of the reality or experiences.

Third education has more significant influences compare to other variables. Education
establishes a negative correlation between knowledge and satisfaction. The results of gender,
social class, income variables also approve the same findings.

Fourth income identifies its influences through this statement- higher income people are
knowledgeable but they are less satisfied in comparing with middle- income earning people.
Middle- income earning people are also knowledgeable. Possible reason for this variation is
amount of tax payment.

Fifth social class has also dominant role in respect of creation of knowledge and satisfaction
regarding on CC and its services. Upper class is more knowledgeable but less satisfied with
services compare to middle class. This finding has close association with the result of income
and education variable.

Sixth occupation also determines the level of knowledge and satisfaction. Both upper and mid-
level occupational groups are knowledgeable with having slight difference. But mid-level
occupational groups are more satisfied. Because in upper level occupational groups many
respondents are businessman and they are not so aware about innovation of government offices
than professional group.

So after taking these findings from the qualitative analysis of data it appears that selected
variables have more or less influences in shaping the citizen‘ satisfaction and knowledge about
CC and its services. That means the hypothesis chosen for our research is somewhat acceptable.
But this hypothesis has less significant implication on overall study. Because the ambit of
hypothesis just covers few respondents who are somehow knowledgeable and satisfied but it do

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not touches the majority of people who are somehow less satisfied and less knowledgeable about
CC and its services.

5.3 Discussion:

The overall findings denote that the implication of DNCC‘s Citizen Charter on service delivery
is less significant. In fact, DNCC is failed to institutionalize the provision of CC into its
organizational culture. So as an innovation or as a catalyst of change it fails to bring any positive
changes into the delivery of DNCC‘s services. But it is essential to know what are the factors or
forces that ordained the outcomes of DNCC‘s Citizens Charter on its service delivery. For
discussing these forces we can take the help of ―Force Field Analysis‖ which was developed by
Kurt Lewin (1951). According to this theory there are two kinds of forces that ordain the success
or failure of an initiative for bringing any change. They are the driving forces and restraining
forces. Similarly in case of DNCC‘s Citizen Charter, some restraining and driving forces are
influencing its performance. These forces are discussed below———————————

Restraining forces/ factors:

 Culture of Unequal treatment:

86% respondents believe that officials make differences between the social classes of
people. This problem is rooted in our social practices and it is associated with mental set-up
of officials. So it is very difficult to abolish this practice from DNCC‘s offices. But without
its abolition CC will not be able to ensure quality services.
 Culture of corruption:
Corruption pervades public life and public administration in Bangladesh. From analysis it
seems that different kinds of corruption like bribery, using dalal, personal access are closely
associated with the process of service delivery of DNCC. For this malpractice DNCC‘s
Citizen Charter founds uncongenial environment to bring any change.
 Lack of proper coordination:
From observation result it seems that DNCC faces the problems of coordination. All its
offices are situated in different areas. So CC is hanged on the front of each department, no

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 single CC are not at the board. Due to dispersed offices CC face the problems in ensuring
the broad goal of DNCC.

 Illiteracy:
Citizen‘s Charter is available in the written form. Though Citizens of DNCC are mostly
literate but in our fieldwork some few respondents (especially housewives) who opined their
view have no capacity to read and obtain benefits from the DNCC‘s charter. Thus in this
exception CC will fail to bring its expected outcome.
 No legal Protection:
One of the key features of DNCC‘s Citizen Charter is the grievance redress mechanism. But
in DNC, grievance redress mechanism means just redressing the queries of Citizens related
to service quality. Citizens do have proper opportunity to make allegation against poor
performed officials. No punishment system is practiced by DNCC.
 Lack of monitoring system:
DNCC lacks proper monitoring system. No field research has been made by DNCC after
formal launching of CC. Even other research organization did not give their attention on this
issue. Though ministry or government authority is formally looking after or coordinating the
formulation and implementation of Citizen‘s Charter. But there is no mechanism of
government or DNCC to see whether targets of the CC are being properly implemented,
whether or not the delivery of services has improved after the adoption of CC. This factor is
greatly affecting the performance of DNCC‘s Citizen Charter.
 Lack of people’s participation in formulation:
DNCC‘s Citizen Charter is for the people but not by the people. Most of the respondents
replied that they have not heard about the introduction of CC. And they also told about the
usefulness of information fails to meet their desires. If DNCC could engage its citizens in
the formulation stage of CC, these problems would be resolved. Due to lack of people‘s
participation Citizens are not so aware of taking the help of CC. So in such situation CC
does not find any strong ground so that it can bring any change into the service delivery of
DNCC.
 Bureaucratic Service delivery mechanism:

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 The empirical evidence suggests that even after some years of its existence the DNCC‘s
Citizen Charter has not yet made much dent an old bureaucratic service delivery
mechanism. The Bureaucratic machinery is still strongly maintained in old-set up.
 Lack of Performance appraisal process for officials:
For ensuring the proper functions of CC, performance appraisal of DNCC‘s official is the
potential force. In DNCC performance appraisal system is not so excellent. In our data
analysis it seems that 75% answered that officials are not ready to hear their problems. And
76% people have a belief that officials are not prompt in services. So in this case, proper
performance appraisal system for the officials could resolve the problems of poor
performance. But DNCC‘s Citizen Charter does not get this benefit because in accordance
to respondents‘ views it seems that it has no performance appraisal process.

Driving forces / factors:

Like restraining forces performance of DNCC‘s Citizen Charter is obligated to some driving
forces. But they are few in numbers.

 Proper attendance of officials in DNCC’s offices:

In Bangladesh, the real pictures of most governmental offices vindicate that official are not
often available at their desks. But in DNCC case, the results of both questionnaire and
observation present the different scenario. 68% respondents answered that they easily get
the access of designated staff and 78% respondents get easily access to the complain-
officers of DNCC. Thus the proper attendance of DNCC‘s officials meets the one criterion
of quality services. Easier accessibility to officials is one of the preconditions for proper
functions of CC. So DNCC‘S Citizen Charter is benefited from this potential success factor.
 Capacity to provide cost-effective services:
From the findings - the acknowledgements of respondents show that they got the cost-
effective services. Cost-effective service refers the economic value of services. This
indicates - the DNCC has the capacity to ensure physical performance of its services.
Without cost-effective services it is quite impossible to satisfy service receivers in the
context of Bangladesh. So this capacity of DNCC ultimately makes the future works of CC
easier.

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 Usage of technology:
There is a positive side that DNCC are now trying to fulfill the requirement of E-
governance. Few days before, no website was available but now DNCC has a website and
also a Facebook Page. If one can visit its Facebook page he will find there are lots of
complains or suggestions are being given by citizens through comments. Thus another way
of grievance redress mechanism has emerged apart from CC. In near future this will be
helpful for achieving the targets of CC and through this process it will make positive
contribution in the delivery of quality services.

Chapter: 06 Conclusion

As a tool of good governance, Citizen Charter has attracted international attention and in
different countries it has resulted in significant improvements in public service delivery.
Bangladesh is also one of those international communities to seek improvement in its public
service delivery through introducing CC. As per the provision of government DNCC has its own
CC. But neither government nor DNCC knows whether it is functioning properly in accordance
with its objectives. They did not carry out any assessment program about the implication of CC
on quality of service delivery. However this study is carried out on this particular area of DNCC
with the analysis of other close- related issues. For getting the real information and
understanding of the facts, data were collected from multiple channels. Besides for ensuring the
credibility of the findings, this study gathered opinion from DNCC‘s officials. It is mentionable
that DNCC‘s officials did not nullify our findings completely. Though some officials opined that
DNCC is serving the quality of services, other officials also informally acknowledged that
DNCC is failing to provide quality service with provision of its Citizen‘s Charter.

In this study the implication of CC in ensuring quality of service delivery is explored. The study
reveals that after the formal launching of CC in DNCC, there are no significant changes or
improvement occurred in quality of services or its delivery process. But there are two positive
effects are sorted out- Accessibility to officials and cost-effective service delivery. In this two
aspects CC has some positive implication in the service delivery process. But in other criteria the

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performance of DNCC‘s Citizen Charter is often the story of failures. Most of the respondents
are not satisfied with DNCC‘s services. In this case, DNCC‘s officials have given some
arguments. One is that DNCC wants to provide services within the stipulated time but most often
Citizens come here with incomplete documents. Thus they fail to give services within the time
stipulated in CC. However this paper establishes different kinds of relations among knowledge
about CC and services, satisfaction, age, gender, income, education, social class and occupation.

Considering the reality, it seems that initiative of Citizen Charter unavoidably faces several
obstacles like the lack of employees‘ motivation, bureaucratic attitude, resources constraints or
the tendency of maintaining status quo. Similarly DNCC‘s Citizen Charter fails to bring positive
effects on quality of service delivery due to multifarious obstacles- both internal and external. In
such condition DNCC can take some kinds of measures so that CC can get the favourable
working environment. They may be the proper training of officials, performance appraisal
system, citizen consultation mechanism, disseminating of information, proper monitoring system
provision of punishment or so on.

The findings of this research also show that Citizens are satisfied with cost- effectiveness of
DNCC‘s services but they have less satisfaction on the criteria of friendliness, equal treatment or
grievance redress mechanism. This means for ensuring quality DNCC needs to ensure
psychological or expressive performance of services. However it can be said that though on the
basis of our research findings – the implication of Citizen Charter on quality of service delivery
is not significant, but if DNCC and government try to fix all the existed problems with greater
motivation then CC will definitely affect the quality of service delivery. In fact CC was not
driven by civil society rather government willingly introduced it into public organization.

This research was conducted on only one organization. It would be advantageous if future
research is carried on comparative study of two or more organization. Besides it did not use the
statistical tool for hypothesis testing. Further research should ensure this kind of testing.

Finally it can be said that as a strong device of good governance CC requires continuous and
regular feedbacks from its environment because citizens‘ needs are ever changing with the
change of time. So it is necessary to assess the performance of Citizen Charter after a certain
period of time.

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and Organisation Theory, Uuniversity of Bergen, Norway

2. Bateson, j and Hoffman, K.(1999) cited in Ghimire, A.J.2012. Managing Service Marketing.
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3. Dreary, G (2005).Contractualisation in Public Sector, Royal Holloway, University of London.

4. Hood, C (1991). A public management for all seasons, Public Administration vol -69, Royal
institute of Public Administration.

5: Hauque,A. S & Ahsan, A.H.M,K (2016). Citizen Charter and Implementation failure:
Performance of local councils in Bangladesh, PAAP.19.1:06-22.

6. Jamil, i and Dhakal, T.N..(2010). Status of the implementation of Citizen Charter in

Municipalities in Nepal.

7. Kalam, APJ Abdul(2014). Governance for Growth in India. New Delhi: Rupa Publications
India Pvt Ltd.

8. Josiah, O. M (2013). Challenges facing the implementation of citizen's charter: A case study
of Kisii Level 5 Hospital, Kenya.

9. Mehata, D.(n.d) Asource of Information in HYR, H.B et 2000. Governance: South Asian
Perspective. Dhaka: The University Press Limited. Ch.5

10. McGuire, L (2002). Service Charter-Global Convergence or National Divergence?" Public

Management Review"; 4, pp; 493-524.

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11. Nayem, Z (2010). Problem of Implementing Citizen's Charter: A case study of Upazila Land
Office, Master in Public Policy and Governance, Derpartment of General and Continuing
Education, North South University, Bangladesh.

12. Osborne and T, Gaebler (1992). Reinventing Government: How the Entrepreneurial Spirit is
transforming the public sectors, Reading MA.

13. Pollitt, C (1994). "The Citizen‘s Charter: A preliminary analysis; Public Money and
Management, 14, pp; 9-14.

14. Razzaque, F (2012): Citizen's Charter and its effectiveness: A case study of Department of
Immigration and Passport of Bangladesh, IGS Working Paper no: 01/2012, May, Brac
University.

15. Sharma, D (2012): An evaluation of Citizen's Charter in local government - A case study of
Chandigarh India, JOAAG, vol: 7, no:1.

16. Tamarkar, R (2010). Impact of Citizen's Charter in service delivery: A case study of District
Administration Office, Kathmandu, North South University.

17. Torres, L (2006); Service Charter in Spain: Transparency and Citizen Empowerment or
Government marketing? Public Money and Management, 26; pp, 159-164.

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Annex: 1
Questionnaire for Services Seekers (Citizens):
I am a student of Bachelor of Social Science (Honours) at Department of Public Administration,
University of Dhaka. As part of my final year study I am conducting research titled “Citizen Charter: Does
it affect the quality of service delivery? A study on Dhaka North City Corporation”. I would be glad to
have your response for the following questions. The information gathered from this interview will be
used only for this research work and remained confidential.

Thank you for your time and cooperation.

Part A: General information:

1. Gender:

a. Male b. Female

2. Age (current): …………

3. Social class:

a. Upper class b. Middle class

4. Education:

a. Literate b. Primary level c. Secondary level d. Graduate degree or higher

5. Occupational Status:

a. Unemployed b. Working c. Retired d. Student e. House wife

6. Occupation of those working (If b in question 5.b then):

a. Manual worker b. Executive, top management, director c. Professional-lawyer, doctor, accountant,

etc.

e. Academic/Teacher, f. Military/police service g. Public servant h. Other (please

specify)……………………………………..............................

7. Occupational sector:

a. Private firm…………………………………………….. b. Public sector.......................................................

c. NGOs d. Foundations/Interest orgs/civil society e. Other (please specify)……………………………………..

8. Would you specify your monthly income BDT ………...........

Part B: Specific Information:

9. Have you heard about the introduction of Citizen Charter in Dhaka North City Corporation?

a. Yes....... b. No……

10. If yes, how did you know about this?

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a) Hording-board b) Family and friends c) staffs d) News and print media

e) Other (please specify)……………………......................................................

11. Do you know about all services of the Citizen Charter of Dhaka North

City Corporation?

a) Absolutely b) Partly c) Not at all

12. Please mention how useful is the information given with regard to the service that

you were looking for?

a) Very useful b) Little useful c) Never got the services

13. In your experience, how long time it takes to get services from the City Corporation?

a) As stipulated in the Charter b) A little longer than the stipulated time

c) Too long time than the stipulated time

14. If the service is delivered within the stipulated time, what mattered most?

a) By due process b) By personnel access c) By bribing

d) By using Dalal (middle-man) e) Others (please specify)………….............................

15. If the service was not delivered within the stipulated time, what mattered most?

a) Incomplete documents b) The officials said my documents were not valid

c) I did not approach to the relevant agency/department/official d) Due to bribe

e) Other (please specify)..............................................................................................

16. Do you think that you have access to information needed by you?

a. Yes b. No

17. What is your experience in getting access to the concerned officials responsible

for service delivery?

Did you have easy access: Not at all Accessible Don’nt know Somewhat Easily

accessible with persuation accessible

persuation

a) To the designated desk- 1 2 3 4 5

staff .

b) To the designated 1 2 3 4 5

complain-officer in case the responsible desk-staff

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was not accessible.

18. How do officials treat you?

a. Friendly b. as a patron client

19. Do the officials make any difference between the social classes of people?

a. Yes b. No

20. In the case you did not receive proper service delivery; did you get clear

Reason / answer why it was not delivered?

a. Yes b. No

21. In the case of non-delivery of services, did you manage to lodge a complaint with

the designated officer or other concerned officials?

a. Yes b. No…………............

22. If yes, what was the outcome?

a) Yes, I got the service

b) I have not yet got the service

c) Don’t know

23. Do you think Dhaka North City Corporation provides you cost effective service?

a) Yes

b )No

24. Are the responsible officials available on their seats?

a) Always b) Sometimes c) Not available

25. In general, are the employees ready to hear customers’ problems?

a) Always b) Sometimes c) Never d) Not useful at all

26. Was the official prompt in providing services?

a) Yes b) No

27. Are you satisfied about the services of Dhaka North City Corporation after the introduction of Citizen
Charter?

a) Yes b) No

(i) If no, why? (Please Specify)................................................................................................................

Thank You!

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Annex: 2
Some departmental Citizen Charters of DNCC

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