35th Pragati Meeting | 28 Jan 2021

Why in News

The Prime Minister of India recently chaired the 35^th edition of Pro-Active Governance And Timely Implementation (PRAGATI) - the Information and Communication Technology (ICT) based multimodal platform, involving Central and State governments.

• Ten projects were taken for review involving a total investment of Rs. 54,675 crore. A review of Pradhan Mantri Bhartiya Jan Aushadhi Pariyojana was also taken.

Key Points

• About:
  
  • Launched in 2015, PRAGATI is the multimodal platform for Pro-Active Governance and Timely Implementation involving central and state governments.
  • It has been designed by the Prime Minister’s Office (PMO) team with the help of the National Informatics Center (NIC).
  • It enables the PM to discuss the issues with the concerned central and state officials with full information and latest visuals of the ground-level situation.
    
    • The PRAGATI platform uniquely bundles three latest technologies: Digital data management, video-conferencing and geo-spatial technology.
  • It is a three-tier system (PMO, Union Government Secretaries, and Chief Secretaries of the States).
• Objective:
  
  • Grievance Redressal.
  • Programme Implementation.
  • Project Monitoring.
• Significance:
  
  • It promotes cooperative federalism as it brings together the Secretaries of Government of India and the Chief Secretaries of the States.
  • It is a robust system for bringing e-transparency and e-accountability with real-time presence and exchange among the key stakeholders.
  • It is an innovative project in e-governance and good governance.
• Concerns:
  
  • The direct interaction of the PM with the state secretaries without involving the political executives of the states is undermining the state political executive.
  • It is also said that this is leading to a concentration of power in the extra-constitutional office of PMO.

Source:TH