Thursday, October 4, 2012

Government to implement PMES for administrative depts

by Haryananewswire
CHANDIGARH, OCT 4
The  Haryana Government has decided to implement the Performance Management and Evaluation System (PMES) for its Administrative Departments. The PMES is implemented by finalizing the Results Framework Document (RFD) as an agreement between Minister and the Administrative Secretary Incharge of the Department concerned.
           This was stated by Dr. Prajapati Trivedi, Secretary Performance Management Division, Cabinet Secretariat, Government of India while addressing a press conference here today. He was accompanied by Haryana Chief Secretary Mr. P.K. Chaudhery, Principal Secretary, Finance Mr. Sanjeev Kaushal.
            Mr. Chaudhery said that the RFD brings out clearly the vision objectives and goals, both long term and yearly, that the Department plans to achieve. The uniqueness of the RFD is that it facilitates transparent monitoring and evaluation on a biannual basis. Since the targets and the goals are self-assigned by the Minister and the Administrative Secretary after due prioritization it is expected to improve the performance of all the Departments manifold.
                  The Government of India introduced PMES in 2009-10. It is being followed by 80 Departments of Government of India and about 800 Responsibility Centres across the country. The RFDs of 39 Departments of Haryana are being finalized for the financial year 2012-13. The exercise for the next year will be started well in time so that the RFDs are finalized in the beginning of the financial year.
            In reply to a question Dr. Prajapati Trivedi, Secretary Performance Management Division, Cabinet Secretariat, Government of India said that we have a team of competitive officers like Prof. Vijay Pal Sharma of IIM Ahmadabad, Mr. V.S. Jain, former Chairman of Steel Authority of India, two former Secretaries of Government of India, who had also been Chief Secretaries of States,  namely Mrs. Asha Sawroop and Mrs. Rajwanti Sandhu who would give their expert  suggestions to the departments in framing RFD. He said that, RFD was a self improvement management exercise.
            In reply to another question Dr. Prajapati said that we were in the third phase of RFD. He expressed happiness that during the first day of two-day workshop being organized here, 39 documents prepared by different principal secretaries have so far been received, which was a significant achievement.  He said that we have group of 21 members of Ad-hoc Task Force interacting one-to-one with the Principal Secretaries and give suggestions to improve the RFD. He also appreciated the quality of RFD prepared by various departments of Haryana Government.
            Dr. Trivedi congratulated the Haryana Government for the tremendous achievement by its department to complete the RFD in the limited time frame and said that there were very few States which have done this in such a short period.  He said that RFD has so far been implemented in 11 States of in the country.
            He said that RFD is meant for the common man only. After getting the approval of these documents, the same would be put on the web so that everyone could see the documents and get benefit. Each department in Haryana would have its separate RFD, he added.  He said that it was the first time when all the objective and targets of the departments were prioritized. This document forces the department to set priorities and long term goals. 
            Dr. Trivedi said that Twenty-one senior members of the ATF are now in Chandigarh for two days for helping the Administrative Departments of Haryana in finalizing their RFDs by holding a face-to-face review meeting with the Principal Secretaries, Additional Chief Secretaries and the Heads of Departments. Immediately after their finalization, the RFDs will be presented to the Council of Ministers for their acceptance. The Departments will then implement the identified mission objectives and activities which will be measured periodically according to the pre-fixed success indicators. The success indicators have been fixed in such a manner so that monitoring and evaluation can be carried out without any subjectivity. The performance of the different Administrative Departments would then be evaluated at the end of the financial year and placed in the public domain for the information of the public at large.
            It may be recalled that after the inauguration by the Chief Minister on  July 3, 2012, a two-day workshop was kicked off by a presentation made by Dr. Prajapati Trivedi, Secretary Performance Management in the Cabinet Secretariat. All the Administrative Secretaries and Heads of Departments familiarized themselves with the objectives of the PMES and the benefits that accrue because of its implementation. One of the objectives that was discussed threadbare relates to the effort to improve transparency in the process of governance and making efforts to change the perception of the common man towards the Government. The officers also interacted with senior officers from Himachal Pradesh, Karnataka, etc., for sharing their experiences about the implementation of citizens’ charter and grievance redressal.
                        The Departments thereafter drafted the Preliminary RFDs and uploaded them on the PMES Website. A preliminary review was held at Delhi by the Ad hoc Task Force (ATF) constituted by the Government of India on September 5, 2012. The State of Haryana on behalf of Departments was represented by the Principal Secretary Finance and Planning and his officers. ATF communicated its observations on the RFDs for re-submission by the Departments, according to the process for their development.

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