Jehlum Post News Network/New Delhi /Mar 25, 2015/Prime Minister Narendra Modi Wednesday launched his ambitious multi-purpose and multi-modal platform, PRAGATI, which is aimed at addressing the common man's grievances and monitoring important programmes and projects. Speaking on the occasion, Modi said the step is to ensure that governance in India becomes more efficient and responsive as the whole world is now observing India keenly. PRAGATI, or Pro-Active Governance And Timely Implementation, is a unique integrative and interactive platform. During the first PRAGATI interaction today, the Prime Minister discussed issues related to unseasonal rain and relief to farmers, public grievances, project implementation, Swachh Bharat and 'ease of doing business'. Among the issues discussed were two sets of public grievances of more than 20 people relating to the payment of Employees Provident Fund of private sector and Income Tax refunds, a PMO statement said. It was noted that all the grievances had been redressed. Also, the intervention through PRAGATI is leading to system improvement so that such grievances do not arise, it said. Two issues flagged by Uttar Pradesh and Maharashtra regarding National Highways and clearance for Navi Mumbai airport, respectively, were also discussed. Six central government projects involving more than a dozen Union ministries and 13 states were also discussed. It was noted that various actions and permissions relating to the projects were pending for several years. A review was also undertaken about progress of school toilet programme and Swachh Bharat Abhiyan. The Prime Minister gave directions for redressal of grievances and compliance on the projects and programmes and motivated all officers to work in coordinated manner for outcome, the PMO statement said.A built-in feature of PRAGATI is that these directions will remain in the system for further follow up and review till the finality of the matter. The PRAGATI platform uniquely bundles three latest technologies: Digital data management, video-conferencing and geo-spatial technology. It also offers a unique combination in the direction of cooperative federalism since it brings on one stage the Secretaries of Government of India and the Chief Secretaries of the States, the statement said.
With this, the Prime Minister is able to discuss the issues with the concerned Central and State officials with full information and latest visuals of the ground level situation, it said, adding it is also an innovative project in e-governance and good governance. Immediately after assuming office, the Prime Minister had shown his keenness to design a credible mechanism for redressal of public grievances, it noted. He was equally keen to see that programmes and projects launched by the central and state governments are monitored properly for timely implementation and desired outcome. With that spirit and for holistic development of the country, it was also felt necessary to facilitate from the Union government level the projects of the states. Accordingly, with the three objectives of grievance redressal, programme implementation and project monitoring, an IT-based redressal and monitoring system has been designed. It will combine data management and analysis, geo-spatial applications as well as video-conferencing. The application will be accessible to the Secretaries of the central government and the state Chief Secretaries. As the name suggests, PRAGATI is aimed at starting a culture of "pro-active governance and timely implementation", the statement said, adding "it is also a robust system for bringing e-transparency and e-accountability with real-time presence and exchange among the key stakeholders". Key features of the PRAGATI application include that it is a three-tier system (PMO, Union Government Secretaries, and Chief Secretaries of the States. The Prime Minister will hold a monthly programme where he will interact with the central government Secretaries and Chief Secretaries through video-conferencing enabled by data and geo-informatics visuals. While the first interaction was held today, it will be held once every month on Fourth Wednesday - to be known as PRAGATI Day. Issues to be flagged before the PM are picked up from the available database regarding public grievances, on-going programmes and pending projects. The system will ride on, strengthen and re-engineer the data bases of the CPGRAMS for grievances, Project Monitoring Group (PMG) and the Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation. PRAGATI provides an interface and platform for all these three aspects. It will also take into consideration various correspondences to PM’s office by the common people or from high dignitaries of states and/or developers of public projects. Union government Secretaries and Chief Secretaries will be able to see the issues pertaining to their Department/State;Union government Secretaries and Chief Secretaries have to put their comments and updates about the flagged issues within three days (by next Monday).Agency

Share this post