Union Minister Dr Jitendra Singh says, States should replicate each other’s best practices in Governance

Union Minister of State (Independent Charge) Science & Technology; Minister of State (Independent Charge) Earth Sciences; MoS PMO, Personnel, Public Grievances, Pensions, Atomic Energy and Space, Dr Jitendra Singh today said that States should replicate each other’s best practices in Governance.

Speaking at the Valedictory Session of the Regional Conference on ‘Replication of Good Governance Practices’ at Bhubaneswar, Dr Jitendra Singh said that Citizen Centric Administration is at the Heart of Modi government’s Governance Model. He said, the changes in Government of India towards improved quality of governance have to be reflected in States and Districts as the aim is to provide governance which is corruption free and transparent.

Dr Jitendra Singh said that the best practices in governance should be adapted and replicated by all states and added that good practices become best practices when they get shared, and some of them can even excel in execution and set even higher standards. The Minister urged all participants to replicate these good governance practices, administrative innovations of Centre, state and districts, so that a citizen centric administrative set up with credo of “Minimum Government Maximum Governance” could be realized at ground level.

Stating that the Government of India had taken many initiative on good governance like CPGRAMS to redress public grievances, Dr Jitendra. Singh said that the notable reforms introduced have ensured automatic refunds on cancellation of railway tickets, single window pension through disbursing Banks, intensive mechanized cleaning of coaches, e-verification of Income Tax Returns, expeditious Income Tax Returns upto Rs.50,000 etc. “Prime Minister always insists on optimal use of technology and the ministry is using it in the best possible way,” he said.

Dr Jitendra Singh recalled, when the Modi Government was elected to office in 2014, need was felt to address certain weaknesses in grievance redressal and steps were taken in this direction. He informed that when the new Government came to power, there were around 2 lakh grievances per year and now the numbers have six fold increase as people reposed faith in the intention of the Government to address their problems and grievances. He also noted with satisfaction that today, the grievance disposal rate in the departments is between 90-95%, which is an example of the citizenry believing that there is someone who is mapping these grievances and there is a hope for time bound acknowledgement and finally proper redressal.

Addressing the conference through virtual mode, Odisha Chief Minister Shri Naveen Patnaik said that Good Governance precisely includes building competency, aligning strategies with goals, being accountable, having a high level of ethics and integrity, defining roles and responsibilities and above all having a pro people approach to all interventions. “Good governance is ultimately the greatest tool of transformation and we all have a genuine responsibility to the people,” said Shri Patnaik.

Department of Administrative Reforms and Public Grievances Secretary Sanjay Singh said that this regional conference is a tool to replicate and also ensure sustainability of the Best Practices. “There is a need to come up with a mechanism to stock up the best practices and look that it is replicated in a sustainable manner.

Minister Planning & Convergence, Government of Odisha Shri Padmanabh Behera outlined Odisha’s initiatives to bring in more professionalism and efficiency in governance. Chief Secretary, Government of Odisha, Shri Suresh Chandra Mahapatra thanked Government of India for coming up with such conference which provides a platform from cross learn from each other in terms of adopting best practices in governance.

Shri V. Srinivas, Additional Secretary, DARPG informed that during the year 2020-21, 12 State portals have been integrated with CPGRAMS while 15 State/UTs are using CPGRAMS for Redressal of Public Grievances. He said, One Portal One Nation is the goal and towards this end Integration of Centralized Public Grievances Redress and Monitoring System (CPGRAMS) with State Grievances portals.

More than 250 delegates attended the conference physically whereas around 250 delegates are connected to the Conference virtually from 15 states of Eastern and North- Eastern region.