Way back in 2009, the Union Government introduced Performance Monitoring and Evaluation System for the Government Departments. Later on, the Chief Secretaries Conference held in February 2010, decided that the Performance Management Division of the Union Cabinet Secretariat will provide assistance to the States in implementing Results Framework Document mechanism at the State level. The purpose of the scheme is to have ready at hand the summary of the most important results that a department expects to achieve during the financial year. Moreover, it is essentially a record of understanding between a Minister representing the people’s mandate and the Secretary of a department responsible for implementing this mandate. This document is to contain not only the agreed objectives, policies, programs and projects but also success indicators and targets to measure progress in implementing them.
In pursuance of the decision taken in the meeting of the Chief Secretaries, guidelines were prepared and forwarded to the Chief Secretaries of all States advising them to brief the departmental secretaries on the subject and ensure that annual Result Framework Document is submitted by them and consolidated at the level of the Chief Secretary. In 2012, J&K Government decided to implement the scheme as most of the States in the country had done. Based on the trial conducted during the last quarter of 2012-2013, almost all the departments prepared Results Framework Document for the financial year 2013-14. However, the outcome of the evaluation done during the period in question was never made public and as such it is difficult to pass any judgment on that. Some exercise is reported to have been conducted in this regard during the financial year 2014-15 but the enthusiasm gradually died down and the matter was left to linger on without any concrete steps taken.
In a meeting of the Secretaries of various departments called by the Chief Secretary, he found that they had almost slept over the matter and no importance was given to the commitment made by the Government. It was embarrassing for him just because essentially it was the duty of the Chief Secretary to ensure that the annual Result Framework Document was submitted by each department.
It is highly undesirable on the part of the secretaries of various departments to be dismissive towards the schemes and proposals of the Cabinet Secretariat that are germane to good governance and aimed at keeping the entire administrative structure at the State and Central level abreast of achievements made and the success of the scheme implemented. Imagine the Government is investing enormous funds in various schemes of public utility. The people have a right to know the level of progress achieved and the results accruing from various new schemes. The system of evaluating the achievements is as important as the implementation of schemes. The Result Framework Document is actually a brief for the Ministers and law makers on the basis of which they are able to maintain rapport with their constituencies and voters. After all this is an important aspect of democratic governance. The Ministers and MLAs are answerable to their respective constituencies and they must be equipped with up-to-date information on various schemes.
The Chief Secretary has issued fresh instructions to the Secretaries of all departments to ensure that they submit the RFD for the financial year 2016-17 without loss of time. We are told that the Secretaries have made the floods of 2014 as the reason for non implementation of RFD. This is not tenable. Everything cannot come to a standstill with the floods. Yes, the floods were devastating but how many districts out of a total of 22 in the State were affected, certainly not all of them. The trend of dismissing the proposals and schemes of the Centre is absolutely unhealthy for our State and we hope that this will be reversed.
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