Institution of the ombudsman as a mechanism of public services’ accountability

Institution of the ombudsman is established to listen to the public's grievances against the executive's decisions and indecisions through the simple, cheaper and accessible process and is capable to provide individual redress to the public. The qualitative method was used such as literature survey and documentary analysis has been carried out to understand the role,evolution and characteristics of the ombudsman's institution. The objective of the study was to identify the role and mechanism of ombudsman and conditions under which ombudsman is effectively used as a mechanism of public services accountability.Findings shows that state –citizen relationship has been equated with the principal -agent model in which citizens stand for the public and state for agent, bound to be answerable to the principal. Ombudsman is empowered to involve the public officials of all levels in to the investigation of the complaints. Ombudsman moves beyond the role of complaint handler and issues guide lines in certain cases to induce policy reform.