PMO plans states’ ‘performance index’

In a unique step to ensure effective implementation of the NDA government’s key social sector schemes like Swachchh Bharat Abhiyan and Pradhan Mantri Gram Sadak Yojana, the Prime Minister’s Office, in tandem with Niti Aayog, is formulating a performance index under which states having performed well in terms of achieving targets under these schemes will be marked green, while laggards will be marked red.

Highly-placed sources told this newspaper the Niti Aayog has called a meeting of chief secretaries of all states on July 27 to seek their views on finalisation of the performance index, under which this colour coding will be introduced. They added while the views of almost all states have been collated, a final call will be taken at the July 27 meeting on this innovative measure. The index is likely to be introduced in other social sector schemes too in a gradual manner, the sources added.

With the NDA government having completed two years in office, the PMO is keen that states tighten up their belts and show greater urgency towards achieving the overall targets earmarked under these two schemes, the sources added. The performance index is seen as a unique endeavour to instil a spirit of cooperative federalism among states, they said.

In Swachchh Bharat Abhiyan, 1.04 crore household toilets and 5.08 lakh public toilets are planned by 2019, while under PMGSY total rural household connectivity is to be achieved through all-weather roads by 2019.

The NDA government recently advanced the original PMGSY deadline by three years from 2022 to 2019.

As per official data of the first year of the SBA (which started on October 2, 2014), till August 2015, Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh, Karnataka, Punjab, Chhattisgarh, Andhra Pradesh, Rajasthan and Haryana had done well in respect of construction of individual household toilets. However at the same time, major states like Uttar Pradesh, Bihar and Tamil Nadu have lagged behind in terms of achieving SBA targets, official sources said.

As against the target of construction of 25 lakh household toilets in urban areas till March 2016, construction of 16.45 lakh toilets had been taken up and 4.65 lakh toilets have already been built, they further added.

Under PMGSY, the government had in fact hiked the annual allocation of the Central release for PMGSY work during 2015-16 by Rs 5,000 crores, which took the total Central allocation to states to Rs 15,100 crores in the fiscal year.

The Central allocation for PMGSY was Rs 9,960 crores in 2014-15, Rs 5,196 crores in 2013-14 and Rs 4,313 crores in 2012-13.

Considering the kind of urgency shown by the Centre towards achievement of targets under these schemes, the need for a performance index to coax states into not only fast-tracking implementation, but also to urge them into a kind of healthy competition among themselves to complete the targets faster, was needed, sources privy to the development observed.