SKOCH Governance Award

SKOCH Governance Award

A catchphrase ‘Minimum Government, Maximum Governance’ fired the imagination of Indian voters in the 2014 general elections. Narendra Modi rose to power on the promise of a clean, transparent and efficient government. With less than a year to go until the next General Elections, it is time to do an outcome-based evaluation of the State of Governance and present a report card of ‘Minimum Government, Maximum Governance’. While there are several initiatives on to do an input and target achievement-based assessments, we believe that the barometer of good governance can only be ‘outcomes’. An important aspect of good governance is the simplification of procedures and processes in the government so as to make the entire system transparent, faster and efficient. To this end, the Government removed around 1,500 obsolete rules and laws in the last four years. According to the Prime Minister, an efficient public service delivery system and better targeting of subsidies through Direct Benefit Transfer (DBT) have led to savings of over Rs.1.40 lakh crore to the exchequer. The Goods and Services Tax (GST) has resulted in a massive change in the indirect tax system. States are no longer required to knock the doors of the erstwhile Planning Commission to get approval for their development works. However, the situation is not as simplistic as it may seem. There are concerns that the new system is impinging the fiscal autonomy of the states. The GST regime has eliminated any possibility of state specific taxation. The 15th Finance Commission’s latest recommendations on grants and revenue sharing have led to a different Centre-State equation. This is expected to evolve into a new federal structure and polity. Every government, be it at the centre, states or local bodies, makes promises on development. ‘Achhe din’ (good days) is among the most widely used political positioning in recent years that seems to have delivered. Yet, there is a need to examine the actual development that has taken or taking place. There is also the issue of which yardstick to apply for measuring development? Input and target achievement-based yardsticks give only partial answers and have to be necessarily read in conjunction with outcome reports that can serve as the correct barometer of measuring citizen satisfaction.