A delegation of senior officials from seven Union Territories and central ministries and departments met in Puducherry on Monday to familiarise officials from across UTs with the dashboard designed by NITI Aayog for monitoring the development in Union Territories.
The Union Territory Progress Tracker Dashboard is an innovative enterprise envisaging real time policy interventions through monthly monitoring of development schemes and accelerate the NITI Aayog’s National Development Agenda and to ensure that Union Territories emerge as role model for other States.
The meeting was convened jointly by NITI Aayog and UNDP India, which is the knowledge partner to discuss the various nuances of the UT Progress Tracker.
It was attended by representatives of all Union Territories and nodal officers coming under the national development agenda.
G. Narendra Kumar, Development Commissioner, Government of Puducherry, who chaired the session, highlighted the role of Union Territories as hubs of innovation and markers of accelerated growth.
He called for diffusing the innovations at the level of Union Territories to demonstrate the potential for replication of high rates of progress to the rest of the country.
The Progress Tracker, which he described as NITI Aayog’s strategic approach to contribute to overall strengthening of governance, had the potential to facilitate this goal in a significant way.
Vikram Singh Gaur, Joint Secretary and UN Nodal Officer, NITI Aayog, introduced the various aspects of the dashboard.
Last-mile delivery
He stressed on the importance of technology tools in governance and added that technology assisted monitoring of development projects was transforming governance and the last mile delivery.
Stating that Prime Minister Narendra Modi aimed at developing the Union Territories as torch bearers of development and be role models for States, Mr. Gaur said the dashboard was a useful instrument for real time policy interventions.
Nodal officers from Union Territories and the Centre were provided a live demo of the Progress Tracker and the issues related to data filling were discussed in detail.
The aim was to better inform them about the components of the dashboard and its role in effective monitoring and evaluation of government schemes.
V. Candavelu, Principal Secretary, Planning and Research and Deepika Lohia Aran, Director, NITI Aayog, was present.
