Ground report: A day at Punjab govt’s “Sarkar aapke dwaar” doorstep camp

As the van stops at the camp, Sandeep, the van driver, and his helper Gaurav — besides managing logistics — quickly start a generator set on the vehicle and soon a huge LED screen comes to life showing, Mann talking about welfare measures undertaken by his government — free power, government jobs, anti-corruption helpline and several others — which is “changing people lives in Punjab”. But, the people in attendance seem more interested in the camp and getting their paperwork done at the earliest than paying attention to what their chief minister is saying.

Villagers praise Mann for the suvidha camp at their doorstep but, at the same time, question the need for the van standing by as “mere a showpiece”. (Express Photo by Divya Goyal)

Soon, a clip shows Mann’s journey — from taking oath as Punjab CM till now — and ends with the party’s glitz song: “Aam Aadmi clinic naal badal reha Punjab… do qadam dunia to aggey, Punjab ne jhande gaddey….”

Villagers praise Mann for the suvidha camp at their doorstep but, at the same time, question the need for the van standing by as “mere a showpiece”. Neither visitors nor officials have time to watch the video being played on the LED screen.

The camps at the village/ward level are offering 44 essential services such as issuing birth/death/marriage certificates, caste certificates, old age pension registration, copies of land records, affidavit attestation and residence proof verification, among others and officials have been instructed to finish the task on the spot.

As reported by The Indian Express, the AAP government in Punjab — taking a leaf out of the BJP-led central government under ‘Viksit Bharat Sankalp Yatra’ — has rolled out 97 vans to publicize its schemes across the state ahead of the Lok Sabha elections and each suvidha camp has a publicity van attached to it.

According to sources, the Punjab Information and Public Relations Department hired 97 vans from Gurgaon-based Ottimo Visuals at the stated cost of Rs 20,463 per van per day — over Rs 19.84 lakh for 97 vans per day.

Punjab DIPR director Bhupinder Singh said, “The vans will be deployed for a month till the camps are going on to publicise the government’s welfare schemes. We have hired the vehicles for around Rs 20,000 per van per day from a Gurgaon-based firm.”

For a month, the publicity van will cost the state government over Rs 5.95 crore.

Appreciating the camp for getting the paperwork done at the doorstep, Kewal Singh, a visitor at the camp to get his old age pension documents verified, questions the need for the van when hardly anyone has time to watch the video being played.

“I got my old-age pension work done. It has been pending for a long time. I did not even notice the van standing by. The government is doing good work for the common people, they hardly need such publicity gimmicks,” Kewal Singh told The Indian Express on Friday.

“What type of achievement is this if you need to spend crores of rupees on publicising like your predecessors? Suvidha camps are a nice way of telling people that you (the government) are working for them. Vans are merely showpieces,” another visitor Jagsir Singh told The Indian Express.

For a month, the publicity van will cost the state government over Rs 5.95 crore. (Express Photo by Divya Goyal)

Similar scenes are in Kadian village of Ludhiana. Here, too, the publicity van fails to make any impression on the people visiting the camp. They are in a hurry to get their work done before the camp ends.

“I got the death certificate of my mother issued. I did not notice the van,” a villager said requesting anonymity.

Even as some people in other districts watched videos played by publicity vans, poor visual quality and distorted sound played spoilsport. “We could not understand what was being played on the screen. The sound quality was so poor. Moreover, it was more important to get the paperwork done. Spending money on vans was completely unnecessary. The camps were good without them,” a dweller of Mohali’s Jhanjheri village.

Despite the government’s best effort to reach out to the people through its campaign beginning Wednesday (February 7), it remained a non-starter in some of the districts. In Moga, vans were not seen even on Thursday.

Bhupinder Singh said, “All district public relation officers (DPROs) have been asked to provide feedback on the performance of vans. The company will be questioned for glitches.”