NEW DELHI, Jan 20:
An agreement signed between India and the UK for cooperation in public administration and governance reforms today got approval of the Union Cabinet.
The agreement allows cooperation in areas like sharing good governance practices in public administration, reducing bureaucracy in service delivery, government process re-engineering, building and developing staff capability, public grievance redress mechanism and reforms towards strengthening of social security, among others.
A meeting of the Cabinet, chaired by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, gave ex-post facto approval for the Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) signed in November, 2015 between India and the United Kingdom for cooperation in public administration and governance reforms, an official release said.
A joint working group on public administration and governance will be responsible for implementation of the MoU.
The MoU will help in understanding the system of customer- oriented public service delivery in the UK with reference to rapidly changing environments in the area of public service management and enable replicating, adapting and innovating some of the best practices and processes in the Indian public service delivery system, leading to improved public service delivery in India, it said.
The first Joint Working Group meeting under the MoU is scheduled to be held later this month in London, the release said. The Centre has set up the goal of quantum shift in online delivery of government services across the country.
“This aims to further government’s efforts at revamping of public administration system, public grievance redress mechanism, ushering in e-governance, Digital India, etc., more so in the context of the goal of ‘minimum government with maximum governance’ through e-governance based citizen centric end-to-end on-line services,” it said. As part of its efforts in seeking international collaboration for initiatives in good governance and administrative reforms, Department of Administrative Reforms and Public Grievances has so far entered into bilateral MoU with China, Malaysia, Singapore and with Brazil and South Africa (trilateral).
The recent MoU with the UK is a step in that direction as it also ranks high in the UN e-government survey, the release said. (PTI)
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