NEW DELHI: The Pragati-led ecosystem for monitoring of projects and flagship schemes has helped accelerate projects worth more than Rs 85 lakh crore in the past decade, PM Modi said Wednesday while chairing the 50th Pragati meeting online with secretaries and chief secretaries.Modi described the milestone as a symbol of the deep transformation India has witnessed in the culture of governance over the last decade. In a statement, the PMO said Modi shared clear expectations for the next phase, outlining his “vision of reform, perform and transform, saying reform to simplify, perform to deliver, transform to impact”. He said reform must mean moving from process to solutions, simplifying procedures and making systems more friendly for ‘ease of living and ease of doing business’.It added the PM spoke how outcome-driven governance has been strengthened through Pragati. He also said transformation must be measured by what citizens actually feel about timely services, faster grievance resolution and improved ‘ease of living’.“The PM underlined that when decisions are timely, coordination is effective and accountability is fixed, the speed of govt functioning naturally increases and its impact becomes visible directly in citizens’ lives,” it said.On Wednesday, the PM reviewed five infrastructure projects across sectors, including road, railways, power, water resources and coal, with a cumulative cost of more than Rs 40,000 crore.During a review of the PM SHRI scheme, Modi said that the scheme must become a national benchmark for holistic and future-ready school education and added that implementation should be outcome oriented rather than infrastructure centric. He asked all chief secretaries to closely monitor the scheme and asked them to make efforts to see that PM SHRI schools become benchmark for other schools of state govts.He suggested senior officers should undertake field visits to evaluate the performance of PM SHRI schools.Recalling the origin of Pragati, PM said as Gujarat CM, he had launched the technology-enabled Swagat platform (State Wide Attention on Grievances by Application of Technology) to understand and resolve public grievances with discipline, transparency and time-bound action. Building on that experience, after assuming office at the Centre, he expanded the same spirit nationally through Pragati, bringing large projects, major programmes and grievance redressal onto one integrated platform for review, resolution, and follow-up.
