The Quality Council of India (QCI) will conduct a review across all central government departments and ministries to check for progress on “efficiency in decision making," the government’s marquee administrative reform.

       The so-called third-party impact evaluation will begin on 1 March and continue for a month, said two government officials aware of the plan.

       The idea is to improve governance and decision-making quality in the government’s top echelons.

       According to the department of administrative reforms and public grievances (DARPG) “increasing efficiency in decision making" is “one of the far-reaching administrative reforms".

       This evaluation will begin with the department of promotion of industry and internal trade (DPIIT), DARPG, department of commerce and department of defence production on 1 March, with QCI likely to dedicate one team for each ministry for the entire day.

       QCI was set up on a public-private partnership (PPP) model and is an independent body under DPIIT working to promote quality standards.

       Since coming to power in 2014, the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) government has been espousing its credo of ‘minimum government, maximum governance’, focusing on simplification of procedures, repealing archaic laws and rules and reducing the time taken in decision-making.

       A spokesperson for the ministry of personnel, public grievances and pensions confirmed the development and said, “Maximum governance-minimum government is high priority for the government of India. A number of initiatives have been taken in recent years towards this end. ‘Increasing efficiency in decision making in government’ is one such initiative adopted in all ministries/ departments of the central secretariat."

       Queries emailed to a QCI spokesperson on Saturday afternoon weren’t answered.

       “The government’s initiative for “increasing efficiency in decision making" represents one of the far-reaching administrative reforms witnessed in the central secretariat. It has brought a silent reform in work culture, reduced hierarchies and resulted in significant adoption of new technology," the spokesperson said.

       “For taking stock of the progress made by ministries/departments, identifying success stories and impact of these initiatives in central secretariat work, it has been decided to conduct a third party evaluation of these initiatives undertaken by ministries/departments through the Quality Council of India from 1-31 March 2022," the spokesperson added.

       The government has been consistently resetting the rules of engagement within ministries and departments.

       It has been working on a raft of administrative reforms such as introducing an appeal mechanism in the central public grievance redressal mechanism, running special campaigns to dispose of pending matters and launching a good governance index for ranking states and Union territories.

       The reform measure pertaining to decision-making was implemented from 15 March last year in the central secretariat and focuses on delayering, delegation, operationalization of desk officer system and digitization.

       “The measures undertaken under this initiative are: a. delayering—a review of levels of disposal and channels of submission to ensure the levels in the channel of submission do not exceed four; b. delegation—of powers in ministries/ departments as well as attached/ subordinate offices, autonomous/ statutory bodies and central public sector enterprises for expeditious decision making; c. operationalization of desk officer system; and d. digitization— of central registration units and adoption of e-office version 7.0," the spokesperson said.

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       The government’s engagement matrix for the bureaucracy ranges from a 360-degree review, which goes beyond the officer’s annual confidential reports (ACR) to the culling of non-performers to implementing lateral entry of specialists in policymaking.

       Also, groups were created by clubbing related ministries to expedite decision-making and reduce bureaucratic red-tape.

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