This study primarily intends to analyse the state of CC’s implementation in the service
delivery system of the Urban-Local Government, especially the City Corporations within
Bangladesh. The City Corporations introduced the CC to offer quality of better services to the citizens by achieving an efficient, effective and accountable service delivery system. However, this study reveals that none of the City Corporations that were studied has made any thoughtful attempts to introduce and integrate the CC into their service delivery system. Rather, Civil Society Organisations (CSOs), namely SONAK and NAGORIK FORUM in Rajshahi and Khulna, respectively, deserve appreciation for their effort to introduce the CC in both the City Corporations. As a result of the pressure created by CSOs on the City Corporations, they introduced the CC by copying and pasting from the draft developed by CSOs. While doing so, they did not sensitise their officials about the pros and cons of the CC.
Although KCC has further developed its CC based on the recommendations of the Civil Service Change Management Programme, RCC is still following the same developed by SONAK more than a decade back. Although it has been evident that since the implementation of the CC refers to just hanging off its display board at different points of cities, none of the City Corporations that were studied played any role in implementing the CC concerning the preparation and hanging of the charter; rather, as far as implementation is concerned, the credit goes to CSOs. However, while assessing the status of implementation of the CC in delivering services of the City Corporation, especially health services, it has been evident that implementation of the CC as a whole has not been successful in the service delivery system of the City Corporation. Of the health services, the City Corporations’ performance in delivering EPI and certificate
services are remarkably noticeable, but no role of the CC regarding these services has been found. This study found nobody who has received these services following the procedures stated in the CC. Notably, before introducing the CC, these services have been offered successfully, and have grown in-depth and have continued to this day.
Moreover, no role of the CC has also been found in the delivery of other services of the Health Department. However, this study reveals several problems that have made the CC’s implementation in the City Corporations’ delivery of health services difficult. Those
problems are lack of awareness about the CC among both the citizens and service providers, lack of willingness among citizens to follow the CC, lack of enthusiasm among the service providers about the CC, lack of publicity, lack of knowledge among citizens about their entitlements, lack of monitoring, lack of orientation of staffs with the CC, the mindset of service provider, lack of visit to service delivering points/centres and lack of linkage among departments/offices.