Data use, transparency can transform governance: Kant
Effective use of data as a policy tool, transparency in administration and collaboration among state agencies can transform governance and improve the lives of people tremendously, India’s G20 Sherpa Amitabh Kant said at the Mint India Public Policy Summit in the capital on Friday.
Kant cited the experience of developing the 115 identified most backward districts termed as ‘aspirational districts’, and said that the collection of data on 49 indicators, ranking them on their basis and making the information public, worked effectively in transforming these districts. Kant was deeply involved in India’s aspirational districts programme, and the ranking of states on various parameters in his earlier role as the CEO of federal policy think tank NITI Aayog.
The think tank does extensive data collection to rank states as part of its efforts to act as a catalyst in developing these regions.
Data as a public policy tool can transform lives, said Kant, explaining that convergence of government schemes, collaboration with states and infusing competition by constant ranking of districts on the basis of actual performance using real-time data have worked in the case of the aspirational districts programme. “Constant competition challenging district officers, putting data out in the public domain and putting ranking in public domain transformed these districts in a very short span of time. This is one of the most important programmes because it uses data for good governance,” said Kant.
The progress of states will have a big impact on national growth too. Kant said that when NITI Aayog made the ‘ease of doing business ranking’ for the states, Gujarat came first in the first year, in the next year, Andhra Pradesh came on top beating Gujarat.
But the good thing, he said, was that Jharkhand and Chhattisgarh made tremendous progress. “If mineral-rich states can transform themselves, we will see that the Eastern part of India growing and competition will force them to becoming champions…If 10 states of India grow at high rates — if Jharkhand, Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Rajasthan, all of them grow at 10% plus — India will grow at a high rate and will become a $5 trillion economy much faster and will become a developed economy, a high-income economy, by 2047.”