Modi's govt puts in place appraisal system for ministers

To ensure that the NDA government ranks high on people centric performance, the work of the ministers in PM Narendra Modi's government would be rated in 'corporate style' evaluation on annual basis.

Updated on: Jun 2, 2014, 23:42:51 IST

Hindustan Times | By Chetan Chauhan, New Delhi

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To ensure that the National Democratic Alliance government ranks high on people centric performance, the work of the ministers in Prime Minister Narendra Modi's government would be rated in 'corporate style' evaluation on annual basis.

The Narendra Modi government has decided to continue with performance appraisal of ministers and their ministries based on the targets set up by the cabinet secretariat.

Former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh had started Results Framework Document (RFD) for all ministries in the UPA-2 but it failed to take off as the ministers resisted their evaluation. In the last five years, the ministers' performance was evaluated only once and the exercise was junked after Gulam Nabi Azad and Ambika Soni resisted after getting a poor ranking.

With the change in government, cabinet secretary Ajit Seth, whose term was extended by six months on Monday --- has found a taker for the 'corporate-style' appraisal mechanism in new PM Modi.

"Prime Minister Narendra Modi firmly believes that transparency and accountability are the two cornerstones of any pro-people government. Transparency and accountability not only connect the people closer to the government but also make them equal and integral part of decision making," says the cabinet secretary's website on performance appraisal of the government ministries.

The highest bureaucratic office of the country would set performance targets for the ministries based on inputs received by from respective departments. A Results-Framework Document (RFD) is record of understanding between a minister representing the people's mandate, and the secretary of a department responsible for implementing that mandate, a senior government official said.

The document would include not only agreed objectives and projects but also success indicators and targets to measure progress in implementing the objectives. It would indicate at end of a financial year department wise outcome of the objectives set and ranking of each ministry. Those who achieve 100% would be ranked excellent and those achieving 60% target would be rated as poor.

A senior government official said the Prime Minister has been briefed about the appraisal mechanism and he had sought ministry wise evaluation reports on a regular basis. The yearly appraisal report will also be presented to the PM.

Appraisal System
Vision: Big picture of what the minister wants the organisation to look like in future
Mission: The steps to be taken to achieve the vision in long term
Objectives: Broad targets specified for the ministry in 12th Five Year Plan, President's address to Parliament and what would be achieved in a financial year.
Action: Time-bound specific steps to be taken to ensure that the objectives are met.
Impact: The change policy initiatives have brought in the society
Ranking: Excellent (100%), Very Good (90%), Good (80%), Fair (70%) and Poor (60%)

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Chetan Chauhan
Chetan Chauhan is the National Affairs Editor looking into all aspects of news and features from across India. A Chevening scholar with over three decades of experience in reporting and news management, Chetan has extensively covered all important aspects of the social sector, political economy, environment and climate change nationally and internationally. He did a journalism course at the Reuters Institute of Journalism in Oxford and Digital Media training at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore. He started as a reporter with The Statesman in 1996 and joined the Hindustan Times in 2000 in the metro bureau covering environment, crime and Delhi politics. He covered hot local news, from the Jessica Lal murder case to the rebellion of Delhi Congress MLAs against then Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit, to the replacement of toxic vehicle fuel with cleaner compressed natural gas (CNG) in the national capital. Some of his stories on air pollution became part of the Supreme Court’s landmark MC Mehta versus Government of India case in the National Capital Region (NCR), forcing the government to take corrective measures. As part of the national political bureau since 2004, he covered important central sectors such as environment, education, social justice, labour, rural development, water resources, renewable energy, agriculture, broadcasting and the Planning Commission for more than a decade producing several exclusive and investigative breaking stories. His specialisation is the environment, having covered at least a dozen United Nations global conferences on climate change, biodiversity and wildlife including climate summits in Paris, Copenhagen and Bali. He also covered India’s two five-year plans ---11th and 12th and reported on drafting and execution of right based laws such as Right to Education, Right to Information and rural job guarantee law, MG-NREGA, now being introduced in new format as VG-RAM-G Act. He has in-depth knowledge of social sector issues. He was one of the first to report on tigers vanishing from Sariska and Panna wildlife reserves in 2004 and 2008, respectively, leading to the setting up of the National Tiger Conservation Authority (NTCA) and the introduction of stringent penal provisions for poaching. He has written extensively on the rising human-animal conflict in India and the degradation of India’s biodiversity hotspots because of mining and other activities. Since 2004, Chetan has covered Parliament comprehensively and participated in training on the nuanced coverage of Parliament proceedings. He has travelled extensively across India to cover national and provincial elections since 1998, especially in the Hindi heartland states, considered India’s road to power. He writes a regular column for Hindustan Times, Ecostani, on important national politics, economy, Himalayan ecology and environmental issues. His other responsibilities include providing inputs for edits and edit page articles for the publication, apart from managing news flow from across India.Read More

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