7-Dec-2022: Timely implementation of NeSDA 2021 recommendations by collaboration between DARPG and States/ UT’s

DARPG will collaborate with States and Union Territories to ensure timely implementation of the recommendations of the National e-Services Delivery Assessment 2021 to ensure the all mandatory e-services are rolled out by States and Union Territories in a time bound manner. Further the DARPG will coordinate with States and Union Territories to strengthen the State Portals and Service Portals to enhance the ease of living of citizens. This collaboration emanates from the deliberations in the 25th National e-Governance Conference held at Katra, Jammu & Kashmir on November 26-27, 2022. In July 2022, Minister of State for Personnel, Public Grievances and Pensions Dr. Jitendra Singh had released the NeSDA 2021 report which assessed 1400 e-Services across States and UT’s and reported that India’s e-Services had grown by 60 percent in the period 2019-2021. 69 percent of the mandatory e-services have been delivered by States/ UT’s in 2021 up from 48 percent in NeSDA 2019. 74 percent of the respondents of the Nationwide Citizen survey are satisfied/ very satisfied with the e-services. To ensure universal adoption of mandatory e-services, a meeting with all States/ UT’s was chaired by Secretary, DARPG, Shri V. Srinivas on December 7, 2022. The meeting was attended by Shri Amar Nath, Additional Secretary DARPG, Shri N.B.S. Rajput Joint Secretary DARPG and Senior Officials from all States and UT’s. The top performing states in NeSDA, 2021 - Kerala, Nagaland, J&K, Meghalaya, Tamil Nadu, Haryana, Rajasthan, Karnataka shared their views on their experiences in expansion of e-services and shifting from single silo departmental portals to integrated portals/ centralized portals driving higher citizen satisfaction. Some of the notable integrated portals implemented by the States/UTs are Ease of Doing business Portal of Assam, Antyodaya Saral portal of Haryana, Seva Sindhu Portal of Karnataka, E-Mitra portal of Rajasthan, E-Sevai Portal of Tamil Nadu, MeeSeva Portal of Telangana, Swagat Portal of Tripura, Nivesh Mitra of Uttar Pradesh.

Following the deliberations, States/UTs indicated that they will strive to attain the saturation of mandatory services in a time-bound manner in collaboration with Department of Administrative Reforms & Public Grievances, which will be monitored through the NeSDA portal.

2-Dec-2022: DARPG collaboration with Government of Maharashtra on Administrative Reforms and Good Governance

On the invitation of Chairman Committee for Good Governance, Government of Maharashtra Shri Suresh Kumar IAS (retd), a 6 member DARPG delegation led by Secretary DARPG V. Srinivas visited Mumbai on December 1, 2022 to firm up the roadmap for collaboration between DARPG and Government of Maharashtra on Administrative Reforms and Good Governance. The DARPG delegation held meeting the 3 meetings (i) Meeting with the Chairman and Members of the Committee for Good Governance (ii) Meeting with the Chief Secretary Shri Manu Kumar Srivastava and Additional Chief Secretary GAD Smt. Sujata Saunak, and Senior Officials of Government of Maharashtra and (iii) Meeting with the Divisional Commissioners, District Collectors, CEO’s of Zilla Parishad and Municipal Commissioners of all Districts of Maharashtra.

The following roadmap for collaboration was drawn up:

1. Draw up a roadmap for time bound saturation of e-Services, e-Office and for replication of the Government of India’s Initiative for Increasing Efficiency in Decision Making in State Secretariat comprising of Delayering, Delegation, adoption of Desk Officer System and Digitization of Central Registration Units.
2. Regional Conference on e-Governance at Mumbai proposed for January 2023
3. Documentation of best practices and administrative innovations of Maharashtra’s districts uploaded on the Good Governance Portal and the PM’s Awards
4. Rewriting the Manual of Office Procedure 2023 for enabling the March to a Digital Maharashtra State Secretariat

The DARPG delegation called on Hon’ble Chief Minister of Maharashtra and appraised him on the deliberations and proposed roadmap for collaboration.

The DARPG delegation comprised of Secretary Shri V. Srinivas, Joint Secretary Shri N.B.S. Rajput, Director Shri K. Sanjayan, Deputy Secretaries Shri Parthasarathy Bhaskar, Smt Sarita Taneja and Under Secretary Shri Santosh Kumar.

21-Oct-2022: DARPG’s Tryst with Preservation of Important Administrative Reports having high Archival Value

In commemoration of Swachhata Campaign 2.0, DARPG has endeavored to preserve some of its important reports pertaining to colonial era placed in its library dealing with Public Administration, reorganization of the Secretariat, organization & staffing of government offices, remedial measures undertaken to cover-up for loss of personnel through partition and the retirement of European officers and several such subjects with which every new born nation has to deal with.

Some of these reports date back to 1908, 1919, 1927 and right up to the partition of the country. During his round to the DARPG on 2nd October 2022, to oversee the Swachhata Campaign 2.0, the Hon’ble Minister of State for Personnel Shri Jitendra Singhji underlined on the importance of preserving such precious and high value records for the posterity as they contain valuable information about the administration and governance. The minister also emphasized on framing of few important  records with high  archival value in order to preserve the legacy that is embedded in such vital records of historical importance.

During the Special Campaign, the department has started a special activity to preserve these important records with the support of National Archives of India (NAI). Simultaneously, the work of Framing of few important reports is also underway.

15-Jul-2022: Ministry of Home Affairs has been ranked at 1 under the Central Ministries Portal in a National e-Governance Service Delivery Assessment conducted by the DARPG

A National e-Governance Service Delivery Assessment was conducted by the Department of Administrative Reforms and Public Grievances (DARPG) in association with its knowledge partners, viz. NASSCOM and KPMG in 2021.  This is a periodic assessment intended to improve the effectiveness of States/Union Territories and the Central Government in delivery of their online services to citizens.

After the evaluation results which were released recently, the website of the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) has been ranked at 1 under the Central Ministries Portal and the Digital Police Portal has been placed at 2 under the Central Ministry Services Portal.

In this exercise, the service portals were evaluated along with their parent Ministry/Department’s portal. In respect of MHA, the Digital Police portal of the National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB) i.e. https://digitalpolice.gov.in/ was shortlisted for the evaluation under the Services Portal. Correspondingly, the main website of the Ministry of Home Affairs i.e. https://mha.gov.in was shortlisted as the parent Ministry portal for evaluation.

All Government portals that were evaluated were divided into two main categories-

1. States/Union Territories/Central Ministry portal
2. State/Union Territory/ Central Ministry Services Portals.

There were four main parameters of assessment:-

1. Accessibility
2. Content Availability
3. Ease of Use and Information Security
4. Privacy for Central Ministry Portals

An additional three parameters were also used for the Central Ministry Services Portals - End Service Delivery, Integrated Service Delivery and Status and Request Tracking.

25-Jan-2022: DARPG and Government of Jammu & Kashmir to collaborate in 3 major sectors of Next Generation Administrative Reforms

The DARPG and Government of Jammu & Kashmir will collaborate on (a) creation of an online portal for monitoring progress in 58 District Good Governance Index Indicators, (b) adoption of e-HRMS in the Jammu Secretariat and Srinagar Secretariat and (c) monitor online the citizen satisfaction in 150 e-Services through Jammu & Kashmir e-Services Delivery Assessment framework. As a follow-up to the launch of the District Good Governance Index on January 22, 2022 by the Hon’ble Union Minister for Home & Cooperation Shri Amit Shah ji, in the august presence of Minister of State for PMO, Personnel, PG and Pensions Dr. Jitendra Singh ji and the Lieutenant Governor of Jammu & Kashmir Shri Manoj Sinha ji at Convention Centre Jammu on January 22, 2022, the roadmap for three key good governance initiatives was drawn up in a meeting between Secretary DARPG Shri V. Srinivas and Chief Secretary Government of Jammu & Kashmir Shri Arun Kumar Mehta held on January 25, 2022.

The Jammu & Kashmir District Good Governance Index represents Next Generation Administrative Reform in Benchmarking Governance at District level. It was prepared after extensive stakeholder consultations. The District Good Governance Index of Jammu & Kashmir helps identify the impact of various governance interventions at district level and provides a futuristic roadmap for improving district level governance with targeted interventions. To further strengthen the Good Governance model of Jammu & Kashmir, the 58 indicators of the District Good Governance Index would be monitored on a dedicated portal on and evaluated by an external agency the Centre for Good Governance, Hyderabad. The data collation formats would be decided by Government of Jammu & Kashmir and an online monitoring dashboard would be developed by NIC. This exercise is expected to be completed by mid-February 2022.

The Jammu Secretariat and the Srinagar Secretariat have been transformed into a paperless Secretariats, with the adoption of e-Office version 7.0. Taking this initiative forward, it was decided that e-HRMS software for digitalization of all employee records would be adopted by the Government of Jammu & Kashmir. The e-HRMS software provides for digitalization of employee service books, leave and travel records of employees, GPF, Gratuity and Pension benefits into the e-Office system. A project proposal for adoption e-HRMS would be prepared by Government of Jammu & Kashmir in collaboration with DARPG.

The Government of Jammu & Kashmir has witnessed a significant transformation in the Ease of Doing Business. One hundred and fifty e-Services are provided through digital platforms. The quality of the 150 e-Services and citizen satisfaction will be benchmarked by the Jammu & Kashmir e-Services Delivery Assessment with the objective to improve the ease of life of the common citizen, improve efficiency and effectiveness of governance and administration. Under this exercise the first set of data sets would be analyzed by February 2022.

The next meeting between Secretary DARPG Shri V. Srinivas and Chief Secretary Government of Jammu & Kashmir Shri Arun Kumar Mehta would be held on February 7, 2022.

19-Dec-2021: ‘Prashasan Gaon ki Aur’- Nation-wide campaign for Redressal of Public Grievances and Improving Service Delivery

The Department of Administrative Reforms and Public Grievances (DARPG), Ministry of Personnel, Public Grievances and Pensions in collaboration with Ministry of External Affairs, Department of Promotion of Industry and Internal Trade, Department of Personnel & Training, Department of Pensions and Pensioners’ Welfare and Ministry of Panchayati Raj and Rural Development is celebrating Good Governance Week on 20-25th December as part of Azadi Ka Amrit Mahotsav celebration.

Dr. Jitendra Singh, Union Minister of State (Independent Charge), Ministry of Science and Technology, Ministry of Earth Sciences, Minister of State in the Prime Minister’s Office, Minister of State of Personnel, Public Grievances & Pensions, Department of Atomic Energy and Department of Space, Government of India will be the Chief Guest at the inaugural ceremony of the Good Governance Week on 20th December, 2021 functions at Bhim Auditorium, Dr. Ambedkar International Centre, New Delhi. The Minister will inaugurate the Exhibition on Good Governance Practices – “शासन की बदलती तस्वीर”. Dr Jitendra Singh will launch the Good Governance Week Portal and will release the booklet on 2 year achievements of DARPG. A film on “Prashasan Gaon Ki Aur” will be screened on this occasion.

Extending his best wishes for all success of “Sushasan Saptah” Prime Minister Shri Narendra Modi in his message said, “In the Amrit period of Independence, we are marching ahead rapidly to create a transparent system, efficient process and smooth governance to make development all-round and all-inclusive. In this context, the theme of the Week — Prashasan Gaon Ki Aur assumes even greater relevance. Our Government is committed to strengthening good governance that is pro-people and proactive governance, guided by the ‘Citizen-First-approach”.

The theme of Good Governance Week is “Prashasan Gaon Ki Aur”- a Nation-wide campaign for Redressal of Public Grievances and Improving Service Delivery will be held in all Districts, States, and Union Territories of India. Over 700 Districts Collectors will be participating in “Prashasan Gaon Ki Aur” and during the weeklong event will visit Tehsil/Panchayat Samiti Headquarters to provide timely grievance redressal and improve service delivery. Guidelines have been issued by DARPG and the State Governments on the activities that will be taken by the District Collectors at Tehsil/Panchayat Samiti Offices.

The objective is to translate the vision of the Prime Minister for Next Generation Administrative Reforms during the Amrit Kaal period across all Districts and Tehsils of India. The progress of the Good Governance Week will be monitored on a portal www.pgportal.gov.in/ggw. Every District Collector will be presenting one successful good governance practice of the district and one successfully redressed Public Grievance case on the portal. Video Clips of district-wise good governance practices will also be created and documented. The “Prashasan Gaon Ki Aur” campaign during the Good Governance Week will create a National Movement for good governance and inspire future generations.

On December 21st, 2021, the deliberation will be on “Good Governance Initiatives by Ministry of External Affairs”.

On December 22nd, 2021, the deliberations will be on “National Workshop on Next Phase of Reforms for reducing compliance burden and Integrated and effective Governance practices by DPIIT”.

On December 23rd, 2021, the Department of Personnel and Training will organize a Workshop on the theme -“Mission Karmayogi-The Path Ahead”

On December 24th, 2021, the Department of Administrative Reforms and Public Grievances will organize a Workshop on the theme-“Initiative for Increasing efficiency in Decision Making in Central Secretariat” wherein the experiences will be shared by Central Ministries/Departments

On December 25th, 2021, “Good Governance Day” would be celebrated. On the occasion, Screening of Film on “सुशासन सप्ताह- प्रशासन गांव की और” will be done and “Good Governance Index- an Assessment of State of Governance in States/UTs” will be launched. Shri Amit Shah, Union Home Minister and Minister of Co-operation, Dr. Jitendra Singh, Union Minister of State (Independent Charge), Ministry of Science and Technology, Ministry of Earth Sciences, Minister of State in the Prime Minister’s Office, Minister of State of Personnel, Public Grievances & Pensions, Department of Atomic Energy and Department of Space, Government of India will grace the occasion of “Good Governance Day” in valedictory session on 25th December, 2021 at Vigyan Bhawan.

Shri Sanjay Singh, Secretary, DARPG, Shri Pankaj Kumar, Chief Secretary, Gujarat, Shri Arun Kumar Mehta, Chief Secretary, Jammu & Kashmir, Shri Devesh Chaturvedi, Additional Chief Secretary, Uttar Pradesh and Shri V. Srinivas, Special Secretary, DARPG will address the inaugural session.

All Ministries/Departments of Government of India, all State Governments and Districts would be participating in the event.

21-Dec-2019: Regional Conference on ‘Improving Public Services Delivery – Role of Governments’ inaugurated in Nagpur

The Secretary to the President, Shri Sanjay Kothari said that aim of Public Services delivery is to ensure ease of living to citizens. He was addressing at the inauguration function of two-day Regional Conference on ‘Improving Public Service Delivery – Role of Governments’, in Nagpur, Maharashtra. The 2-day conference is being organised by the Department of Administrative Reforms and Public Grievances (DARPG) in collaboration with the Government of Maharashtra and the Maharashtra State Commission for Right to Public Services.

The Union Minister for Road Transport & Highways and Minister for Micro, Small & Medium Enterprises, Shri Nitin Jairam Gadkari and Minister of State (Independent charge) of the Ministry of DONER, Minister of State for PMO, Personnel, Public Grievances & Pensions, Atomic Energy and Space Dr Jitendra Singh, will address the Valedictory Session of the Regional Conference on “Improving Public Services Delivery – Role of Governments” on 22.12.19.

In his address, Shri Kothari said that the real power lies with the citizens of the country and it is the prime duty of the government to work towards making their lives easy. This realisation has empowered the citizens. The systems and processes should be made transparent. Any proposed change in the existing rules should be put in public domain first for suggestions and feedback from citizens. These inputs can be considered for decision making while incorporating changes. Public Service Delivery is very important as citizens are now focussed on getting their work done. He encouraged the young officers to serve the citizens of India. He said that we should be more concerned about the citizens, and not the system. The system should be made simple and not complicated. While emphasising on ‘ease of living’ to citizens, he said Government need not control the delivery of services, but facilitate efficient, transparent and time-bound delivery.

Shri Kothari spoke about various initiatives of the Government for the ease of citizens. He said that interviews for recruitment to junior level posts in Government have been discontinued, which has boosted the confidence in Government. Government has done away with the mandatory police verification prior to joining on appointment in Government service. The appointment letters can be issued after self-attestation by the candidates and the police verification can be completed within six months. He also emphasised that forms should be made simple and not complicated for ease of citizens. He also spoke about Grievance redressal mechanism. He further said that the officers should interact with people to have field experience and there is no substitute to it. Shri Kothari stressed upon ‘Out of Box’ thinking to find solutions to the problems of the citizens.

The Chief Commissioner, Right to Services, Maharashtra, Shri S. S. Kshatriya said that Information technology should be used optimally to benefit the citizens. He spoke about three aspects of Public Service Delivery i.e. Lokabhimukh (citizen-centric), Pardarshita (transparency) and Kalmaryada (time-bound). He said that a bilingual (Marathi and English) Mobile App and web portal (Aaple Sarkar) have been designed under RTS. He added that 486 services are under the ambit of Maharashtra Right to Public Services Act. Shri Kshariya said that 30,800 centres have been set up in Maharashtra to offer assistance to the people who apply online. He stressed upon the monitoring and evaluation of the performance. He said that ‘Yashogatha’ i.e. best practices should be aptly publicised to encourage the concerned officers.

The Regional Conference is being attended by the officials representing 22 States and Union Territories and also officials from the State Administration. Discussions are being held in 6 Technical Sessions. The Technical Sessions in the Regional Conference are:

1. How the Enactment of the Right to Services Law has helped in Improving Delivery of Public Services
2. Electronic Delivery of Public Services
3. Creating Awareness in Society regarding Right to Public Services
4. Centralized Public Grievances – Redress and Monitoring System (CPGRAMS)
5. Innovative Practices regarding delivery of Public Services
6. Ek Bharat-Shreshth Bharat with focus on Improving Public Services Delivery in the Districts of Maharashtra and Odisha.

5-Dec-2022: National Single Window System (NSWS) to help realize Prime Minister's vision of transforming red tape to red carpet: Shri Piyush Goyal

Union Minister of Commerce and Industry, Consumer Affairs, Food and Public Distribution and Textiles, Shri Piyush Goyal today said that the National Single Window System (NSWS) would help realize Prime Minister Shri Narendra Modi's vision of transforming red tape to red carpet.

He was addressing a press conference after a review meeting on National Single Window System in New Delhi today. The meeting witnessed participation from 32 Central Ministries/ Departments, 36 States/ UTs and Industry Associations (CII, FICCI, ASSOCHAM and PHDCCI). At the meeting, several new ideas emerged from various stakeholders, especially on integration of data collection through a single time entry of critical information, the Minister said.

Shri Goyal said that PAN number is likely to be used as a unique identifier for API integration of data between ministries and states for ensuring single business user ID. NSWS also helps in reducing data duplication and filling same data in various forms using auto-population Module, he added.

Shri Goyal lauded the remarkable progress achieved by NSWS till date and said that a large number of stake holders had availed benefits of NSWS right at the beta testing phase which is ongoing.

He pointed out that NSWS had received nearly 76000 applications/requests and about 48000 approvals had been granted through NSWS. The minister noted that technical glitches in NSWS were as low as 514, meaning that the portal showed over 99 percent efficiency.

Shri Goyal added that 27 Central Departments and 19 states have been onboarded on NSWS. Schemes fully onboarded on NSWS include Vehicle Scrapping Policy, Ethanol Policy, Leather Development Program, hallmarking of jewellery, Petroleum and Explosives Safety Organization (PESO) certification.

The Minister said that National Land Bank has also been integrated into NSWS. He added that 1 lakh hectares of land in different industrial parks and estates are available on NSWS. The portal will become a one stop shop for buying industrial land, he said.

Encouraging more and more states to make use of NSWS, Shri Goyal said that states which use NSWS would be given better ranking on Ease of Doing Business Index.

The Minister said that renewal of licences would also be brought under NSWS starting with 5 Ministries like Commerce and Industry, Consumer Affairs, Food and Public Distribution and Textiles.

The key objectives of the review meeting today were to ensure onboarding of investor-related clearances by Ministries/ Departments of Govt of India and by the State Govts and UTs, in order to meet time lines, to complete ownership by all the Stakeholders for smooth functioning of the NSWS, to increase usage of the NSWS by the industry and use industry feedback to improve systems related to EoDB/ ease of investor clearances; and to discuss the way ahead on a convergence approach to the NSWS.

NSWS is an ambitious initiative which promises to be the gamechanger for increasing investments and reducing compliance burden in the country. The system would lead to convergence of all Ministries/ Department and States/ UTs through the “whole of Government approach”.

Various ministries, states and Union Territories have worked in close coordination with DPIIT and NSWS Team to bring this portal up and running. Industry Associations have given valuable feedback from time to time that helped improve and optimize the system.

8-Feb-2022: J&K becomes the first Union Territory to be integrated with National Single Window System

In a historic achievement, Jammu & Kashmir became the first Union Territory to be onboarded the National Single Window System (NSWS). This marks a major leap in Ease of Doing Business (EoDB) in the Union Territory.

Lieutenant Governor Shri Manoj Sinha launched the J&K Single Window Clearance System integrated with NSWS yesterday in the presence of Shri Arun Kumar Mehta, Chief Secretary, Govt of J&K, Ms. Sumita Dawra, Additional Secretary, DPIIT, Shri Ranjan Thakur, Principal Secretary Industries & Commerce, Govt of J&K.

NSWS is linked with India Industrial Land Bank (IILB) which hosts 45 industrial parks of J&K. This will help Investors to discover available land parcels in J&K.

The NSWS, a 2020 budgetary announcement of the Government of India, is a digital platform that serves as a guide for investors to identify and to apply for approvals as per their business requirements. The platform was soft launched in September 2021 by the Union Minister for Commerce and Industry, Textiles and Consumer Affairs, Food and Public Distribution, Shri Piyush Goyal.

NSWS will eliminate the need for investors to visit multiple platforms/offices to gather information and obtain clearances from different stakeholders.

Twenty Ministries / Departments have been integrated on NSWS including Ministry of Corporate Affairs, Ministry of Environment, Forest & Climate Change, Ministry of Commerce & Industry, Ministry of Health & Family Welfare amongst others. Currently 142 central approvals can be applied through the NSWS portal.

14 States/UTs onboarded on NSWS include Andhra Pradesh, Goa, Gujarat, Himachal Pradesh, Jammu & Kashmir, Karnataka, Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra, Odisha, Punjab, Tamil Nadu, Telangana, Uttar Pradesh, and Uttarakhand.

The Know Your Approval (KYA) module on NSWS guides investors to identify approvals required for their business based on a dynamic intuitive questionnaire. Currently, the module hosts more than 3,000 approvals across Centre & States.

As on date, the portal has 16,800 visitors, out of which 7,500 KYA journeys have been serviced. More than 1,250 investors are registered on the portal.