J&K first to release Good Governance Index in the country

CS calls it an exercise to make administration more innovative, reformative, accessible and accountable

JAMMU, JAN 21: The Union Secretary, Department of Administrative Reforms and Public Grievances (DARPG), V Srinivas today presented the first copy of District Good Governance Index (DGGI) to Chief Secretary, Dr Arun Kumar Mehta here in presence of Principal Secretary Information and Higher Education, Rohit Kansal, Principal Secretary, GAD, Manoj Kumar Dwivedi and DG IMPARD, Sourabh Bhagat.
The maiden exercise is the sequel to the many administrative reforms taken in hand by J&K administration post August, 2019. The exercise is first of its kind in the country where districts have been rated as per their score computed on public feedback and reforms taken in making the governance process simple, swift, innovative, accessible and accountable.
On the occasion the Chief Secretary termed it as a milestone in improving the overall culture of offering people-friendly administration with an inherent sense of accountability along with transparency in its functioning.
He said the exercise is prelude to the umbrella process taken by the government to make governance more responsive, reformative, reasonable, rational and accessible at doorsteps of people.
Dr Mehta lauded both DARPG and IMPARD for culminating this tedious exercise in such a short duration of time. He maintained that this exercise would be made more evolved and inclusive in future overspreading to even the lowest levels of administration.
Earlier it was said that the DGGI framework has 58 indicators drawn from different aspects of development and district administration. It encompasses 10 sectors such as agriculture and allied sector, commerce and industry, human resource development, public health, public infrastructure and utilities, economic governance, welfare and development, public safety and judiciary and citizen centric governance in computing the overall score of the district in the index.
After an elaborate exercise of data collation followed by data sanitization the final index was computed using standard and tested data normalisation and scoring methods, as was revealed on this occasion.
The index would reflect comprehensive rank of districts based on composite 10 sectors. The DGGI will also offer a window on indicator-wise performance of the districts, a much easier way of understanding their performance on governance process, as was said by the concerned officers during this official event.