Mumbai:A day after The Asian Age reported the flaws in Maharashtra District Good Governance Index (DGGI) 2024 report, the Maharashtra government on Saturday swung into action to rectify the report. The state government has also suspended its website, namely https://dggi.maharashtra.gov.in, where the report was published.
The Directorate of Economics and Statistics (DES), an arm of the planning department of the state government, has called a meeting of the officials to remove errors from the data. A senior official of the state government said that they are verifying the data, which led to the suspension of the website.
Maharashtra chief minister Devendra Fadnavis on Thursday released the DGGI report, which is riddled with inaccurate data. The report is based on 161 benchmarks across 10 development sectors, namely Agriculture and Allied Sectors, Public Health, Public Infrastructure and Utilities, Economic Governance, Commerce and Industry, Social Development, Judiciary and Public Safety, Human Resource Development, Citizen Centric Governance and Environment.
As per the data in the report, the total cultivated area under crop insurance in Kolhapur district in Rabi season was 4,30,067.06 hectares, which is 22 times more than the total cultivated area in Kolhapur district. Flaws can be observed in the data as each sector in the report contains a 2020-21 and 2021-22 financial year's data, which can't reflect the actual position of 2023-24.
According to the sources, the actual crop insurance was taken for five percent of the total cultivated/sowing area in Kolhapur district.
The senior official said that the website has been suspended on the instructions of the state government officials. “We’re under maintenance! Our website is currently undergoing maintenance. We sincerely apologize for any inconvenience caused and appreciate your understanding. Please check back later,” reads the website, if it is accessed.
An official from the DES said, “We have called a meeting on holiday to conduct a verification of the data on the instruction of the state government.”
Officials said that the DES has sought reports from various departments to conduct a verification of the data, which were earlier provided by respective departments. “It will be matched with existing data and make corrections wherever is needed,” the officials said.
The senior official said that there is always a scope of improvement in the existing system. “The report will help to bring more transparency in the governance. We will soon publish a revised report after making a correction in it,” he said.
An official from the National Informatics Centre (NIC) said that the report is likely to be updated by next week.
