J&K to have district-level good governance index: Minister

New Delhi, January 2

Union Minister Jitendra Singh on Sunday said J&K would soon become the first Union Territory in the country to have a district-level good governance index.

The framework of the proposed index has been finalised with the technical support from the Centre for Good Governance (CGG) of Hyderabad, he said here. Singh announced this after receiving an update from newly appointed secretary of the Department of Administrative Reforms and Public Grievances (DARPG), V Srinivas.

Singh, who is the Minister of State for Personnel, said Prime Minister Narendra Modi was keen that “we should replicate in J&K the same best practices of governance which are followed in other states and UTs”.

Good Governance Index at the district level, Singh said, will enable each of the 20 districts of the UT to rise to the level of some of the best administered districts of the country with time-bound disposal of office files and other matters, increased transparency, increased accountability and increased citizen participation.

He said the next step would be to carry forward these good governance practices down to the tehsil and block levels. The District Good Governance Index (DGGI) framework has 58 indicators drawn from different aspects of development and district administration distributed in an all-encompassing 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, a statement issued by the ministry said.

These indicators were finalised after a series of consultations with district officials of J&K, academia, subject specialists, among others, it said.

Looking at the availability of authentic published data and other key principles, the set of indicators have been finalised from a larger list of 135 to 58, the statement said. The final index computation process using standard and tested data normalisation and scoring methods is under way, the statement added. — PTI

To be first such UT

• Union Minister Jitendra Singh says J&K will be the first Union Territory to have good governance index at the district level.
• It will ensure time-bound disposal of files, increased transparency, accountability and more participation by citizens.