37th Pragati Meeting | 26 Aug 2021

Why in News

Recently, the Prime Minister (PM) chaired the 37^th edition of Pro-Active Governance And Timely Implementation (PRAGATI) - the Information and Communication Technology (ICT) based multimodal platform, involving Central and State governments.

• The PM reviewed various projects worth Rs 1,26,000 crores along with the ‘One Nation – One Ration Card’ (ONORC) scheme’.
• The ONORC scheme aims at providing subsidised food grains to migrant workers and their family members at any fair price shop anywhere in the country under the National Food Security Act, 2013.

Key Points

• About:
  
  • Launched in 2015.
  • 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: IE