District Good Governance Index

Context: Recently, the Union Minister of Home and Cooperation Amit Shah has virtually released India’s First “District Good Governance Index” for 20 districts of Jammu and Kashmir.
About the index

• Launched for 20 districts of Jammu and Kashmir.
• It has been prepared by the Department of Administrative Reforms and Public Grievances (DARPG) in partnership with the Union Territory’s administration.
• Under the index, the policies, schemes and programs of the central as well as the state governments have been monitored at the district level.

Significance of the index

• It provides a roadmap for similar benchmarking of Governance at District level for all States and Union Territories of India.
• The beginning of this index in Jammu and Kashmir will slowly expand to all other states and a good governance competition will start in every district of the country.
• The index covered 10 sectors and 58 indicators.
• The index will benefit residents of Jammu and Kashmir in a big way as it will work towards improving the district machinery, make districts result-oriented and also improve their delivery mechanism.

Key highlights of the index

• Jammu district topped the composite ranking, followed by Doda and Samba districts of the Jammu Division.
• The district of Rajouri finished at the last spot, while Poonch and Shopian districts also featured towards the end of the rankings.
• Srinagar district bagged the first rank in Public Infrastructure and Utilities sector.
• Kishtwar topped in ‘Agriculture and Allied Sector’, Pulwama topped in ‘Human Resource Development’, Reasi topped in ‘Public Health’, Ramban topped in ‘Social Welfare and Development’, and Ganderbal topped in the ‘Financial Inclusion’ sector.

Performance of J&K in the National Good Governance Index

• Previously, the Centre had released the National Good Governance Index on December 25 last year that indicated Jammu and Kashmir saw an increase of 3.7% in Good Governance Indicators from 2019 to 2021.
• The strong performance of J-K was also noted in the fields of commerce and industry, agriculture, judiciary and public infrastructure among others.