Jaipur, Oct 4: While inaugurating the 2-day Regional Conference on Good Governance here today, Union Minister of State (Independent Charge) Science & Technology, MoS PMO, Personnel, Public Grievances, Pensions, Atomic Energy and Space, Dr Jitendra Singh hailed Bharat’s Amrit Kaal journey to usher in “Viksit” Bharat.
Dr Jitendra Singh said, under the leadership of Prime Minister Sh Narendra Modi, Bharat is on the threshold of emerging as “Viksit” Bharat and the groundwork to achieve this target has been effectively accomplished in the course of the last nine years.
The Modi Government has taken several strides to adopt new age technologies for better delivery of Good Governance and Services to citizens and many of these practices deserve to be shared widely so that others too can emulate the same, said the Minister. Some of these best practices, like aspirational districts, Gatishakti and Covid vaccine are being cited by other countries as well, he said. have turned into role models.
The Union Minister said, “The ‘Maximum Governance – Minimum Government’ policy has been translated into reality by digital empowerment of citizens. A confident India is manifest in the strides in Science & Technology, Infrastructure, Digital Empowerment of citizens”.
Dr Jitendra Singh said, as we embark on this journey towards building the Atma Nirbhar Bharat (a self-reliant India), we have to focus on empowering our citizens and ensure even the last person at the end of the line does not feel left out of the nation’s progress to prosperity.
“As Prime Minister Modi often exhorts- empowering our citizens means ensuring that every individual in our country has access to basic necessities such as Healthcare, Education, and Employment. It also means creating an environment where every citizen has the opportunity to realize their full potential,” he said.
Quoting Prime Minister from his address at the Civil Services Day ceremony in April this year, Dr Jitendra Singh said, “it is important for Viksit Bharat that India’s government system supports the aspirations of every Indian and every Karmayogi(government servant) helps every citizen in realizing their dreams.
“Restructuring of the Scheme for PM’s Awards for Excellence in Public Administration has been one of the defining features of PM Modi. He has redefined the scheme by ensuring universal participation, defining priority sector schemes and streamlining the entire process as a digital process,” he said.
Lauding the DARPG for organizing sessions by recipients of the PM Awards conferred on the 16th Civil Service Day on 21st April, 2023, the DoPT Minister said the replication and dissemination of Best Practices are crucial for dissemination of Good Governance practices.
“The Regional Conferences on Good Governance serve as an important platform to transfer knowledge and practices that can be mutually beneficial. We need to form groups of officers with citizen centricity and build their capacity in each district to help the nation make rapid strides in development,” he said.
The DARPG has organised 24 Regional Conferences in the past 9 years, 5 were held in 2022 alone. The Conferences covered the length and breadth of India – from Leh to Srinagar to Bhopal to Benguluru to Thiruvananthapuram to Mumbai, to Shillong, Kohima, and Itanagar.
Dr Jitendra Singh said, the DARPG has launched a compendium of 300 Best Practices which will be implemented by all Government Ministries and Departments, highlighting ‘Whole of Government’ and ‘Whole of Science’ approach.
Stating that Prime Minister Modi has stressed that grievance redressal is the most important aspect in a democracy, Dr Jitendra Singh said when we introduced CPGRAMS, in 2014 we just had about 2 lakh grievances being filed across the country every year, today we have about 20 lakhs, 10 times more. As a result of reforms undertaken by the DARPG, average disposal time of grievances by the Central Ministries/ Departments has improved from 32 days in 2021 to 27 days in 2022 and 19 days in January 2023 because of these reforms, he said.
“This reflects the increased trust of people in grievance redressal,” he said.
Pointing out that Prime Minister Modi has turned the Swachhata campaign into a Jan Aandolan (People’s Movement), Dr Jitendra Singh urged all citizens to voluntarily participate in Shram Daan. Following the success of the last two Special Campaigns, the Government of India is observing the Special campaign 3.0 from 2nd October, 2023 to 31st October, 2023 with focus on Swachhata and Reducing Pendency in Government Offices with a saturation approach.
“Over 1 lakh Central Government offices participated in theSpecial campaign 2.0. 89.95 lakh sq. ft space was cleared from scrap & outlived records and Rs 371 Cr was earned through disposal of scrap, about 4.55 lakh public grievances were disposed of and about 37.35 lakh files were weeded out during the campaign last year,” he said.
“More than 2.16 lakh sites have been identified for Swachhata, 29.90 lakh physical files and 2.27 lakh e-Files have been identified for review. The Ministries/Departments have also identified about 4.36 lakh public grievances for redressal during the campaign,” he added.
Dr Jitendra Singh said, under the directions of PM Modi, the Government celebrated the week December 19-25 as SushasanSaptah (Good Governance Week). The first Sushasan Spatah was celebrated in 2021 and the second in 2022. During the week, a weeklong Nation-wide campaign titled ‘Prashasan Gaon Ki Ore’ was conducted throughout India.
“India’s States can work in unison to make good governance at village level a reality, this is possible by improved coordination and synergy building,” he said
