J&K govt depts under scrutiny
New system to keep tabs on performance
Jammu and Kashmir government is launching a new system to bring the performance of its departments under greater scrutiny.
Official sources said under the results-framework document (RFD) initiative, each government department’s performance will be assessed to identify shortcomings. Subsequently corrective measures will be taken to improve it.
The RFD system is aimed at judging the performance of departments on the basis of parameters like timeline of completion of targets, quality of work done and benefit to people.
At a two-day conference in Jammu on the RFD initiative, chief minister Omar Abdullah said while elections presented `evaluation perception' of public representatives, there should be evaluation of the performance of the bureaucracy and government departments. The RFD will be the right instrument for it, he said.
“The RFD initiative will be launched this year for the entire government in one shot and all its departments would be asked to formulate RFDs for the last quarter of the current year and the entire next year,” Omar said.
The workshop was organised in collaboration with performance management division of the cabinet secretariat at the Centre for administrative secretaries and heads of the departments, enabling them to get acquainted with the basics of the new system.
The system has already been implemented in 10 states so far. The chief minister said the annual performance report (APR) mechanism for evaluating individual government functionaries did not accurately reflect the performance of departments and officials.
Importance of RFD
State’s chief secretary Madhav Lal, who has been associated with the RFD formulation
at the Centre, gave a detailed account of the initiative’s significance in improving the
performance in government departments and ensuring quality public service delivery.
He said this was the right time to learn more about the initiative as the bureaucrats would soon be formulating the next's year budget.
