File photo of Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal. (Press Trust of India)
Delhi government will soon introduce 'self-attestation' and do away with the need of filing affidavits or getting various certificates attested by gazetted officers and lawmakers as part of its efforts to bring a "paradigm" shift in governance, Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal said today.
Speaking at a CII event, he said that this move would bring relief to the general public who have to go through a tedious process of getting birth, death or marriage certificates signed by officers of gazetted rank or lawmakers.
He said the step will also help in weeding out corruption and that the government would ensure "tough penalty" in case of any wrong doing like wrong submission of information, general particulars or tax evasion.
"We have to take all sorts of certificates like death certificate, birth certificate, marriage certificate...around 14 types certificates are to be taken from the SDM office," he said, adding the process of getting certificate is very tedious.
"We will end the process of getting them signed by gazetted officers and lawmakers. We had a meeting with SDMs recently in this regard. Let us believe in our people. You (people) give us affidavits and go for self-certification. You will see a complete paradigm shift in getting certificates in Delhi soon," Mr Kejriwal said.
He said government wants to bring transparency in governance and the reform measure is being initiated to rid the system of corruption.
"We will believe what the people will give us but any fraud won't be tolerated. If you consider teller system in banks, you must have never heard about any scam in teller system. That also works on the basis of trust. Scams take place when officers come into the picture to scrutinise and all," he said.
The AAP government's proposal in this regard comes two months after the Centre decided to do away with the need of filing affidavits from a gazetted officer or a notary for a big chunk of government-related work and promote self- attestation of documents instead.
It had also asked states to review the existing requirement of attaching such affidavits with various application forms and implement self-attestation of documents.