NITI Aayog organizes a virtual workshop with 47 Central Ministries/Departments, chaired by Shri Rajiv Gauba, Cabinet Secretary. They discussed stakeholder consultation, engagement with publishing and survey/data agencies, a framework for state rankings, a platform for information sharing, and monitoring mechanisms.
A single, informative dashboard prepared to monitor 29 selected Global Indices, published by 19 international agencies to drive reforms and growth in the country. The indices assigned to 18 nodal ministries and departments of India's Government. NITI Aayog will assist in monitoring all these Indices' performance and progress and aid in their engagement with Publishing Agencies. It allows monitoring of the parameters as per official data and the data source used by the publishing agencies.
The Ministry/Department will also coordinate with the data publishing agencies to ensure accurate and representative reporting. It will also facilitate monitoring the performance of the States and Union territories, including on reforms. The Index Monitoring Cells set up in related Ministry/Department will follow the exercise, critical parameters identified, and ensure improvements and progress sought achieved.
Index Monitoring Cells have already been set up in most Ministries to drive and monitor this exercise. This activity will require close coordination among the Central Government, States, and Civil Society Organizations.
While inaugurating the Workshop, the Cabinet Secretary highlighted that the monitoring exercise is to improve rankings and improve systems and drive reforms to attract investments and shape India's perception globally. He also called this monitoring exercise a trigger for transformational improvement in India's citizen service delivery framework.
CEO, NITI Aayog, briefed the participants about various background activities carried out by NITI Aayog, NIC, DPIIT, MoSPI, and other Ministries concerning monitoring these Global Indices. He also stressed the need for close and regular coordination between Central and state governments, Publishing Agencies, and Civil Society Organizations to improve performance on these Indices as a trigger for reforms.
It has long been felt that there is a need to measure and monitor India's performance on various important social, economic, and other parameters through internationally recognized Indices. The exercise's goal is to use these Indices as tools for self-improvement and bring about reforms in policies while improving last-mile implementation of government schemes.
Simultaneously, it is equally important to present an accurate image of India to the world. The large-scale reforms initiated by the Department for Promotion of Industry and Internal Trade and India's improvement in the Ease of Doing Business rankings (India jumped to the 63rd position in 2020 report) were felt to be the right template for driving this process.
In his closing remarks, the Cabinet Secretary emphasized the need for regular engagement with Publishing Agencies to present an accurate picture of the country. He highlighted the improvement of India's rankings in Ease of Doing Business Index as an example in this regard. He also spoke about setting up PMUs in all the nodal ministries to spearhead the whole process.
Source Date: July 10, 2020 PIB Delhi
