35th Pragati Meeting | 28 Jan 2021

Why in News

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

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