Governance and its legislations, initiatives

Recently Ministry of Rural Development released a “Financial Management Index for Rural Development Programmes” to rank the performance of the States on the basis of following parameters:
-Preparation of annual plan, projecting the requirement of funds for the financial year, expeditious release of State’s share, timely utilization of the funds and submission of the Utilization Certificates etc.;
-Optimum implementation of Public Financial Management System (PFMS) & Direct Benefit Transfer;
-Internal Audit; and
-Social Audit.

Section 8 of the Right to Information Act, 2005 provides for exemption from disclosure of information:
(a) information, disclosure of which would prejudicially affect the sovereignty and integrity of India, the security, strategic, scientific or economic interests of the State, relation with foreign State or lead to incitement of an offence;
(b) Information which has been expressly forbidden to be published by any court of law or tribunal or the disclosure of which may constitute contempt of court;
(c) Information, the disclosure of which would cause a breach of privilege of Parliament or the State Legislature;
(d) information including commercial confidence, trade secrets or intellectual property, the disclosure of which would harm the competitive position of a third party, unless the competent authority is satisfied that larger public interest warrants the disclosure of such information;
(e) Information available to a person in his fiduciary relationship, unless the competent authority is satisfied that the larger public interest warrants the disclosure of such information;
(f) Information received in confidence from foreign Government;
(g) Information, the disclosure of which would endanger the life or physical safety of any person or identify the source of information or assistance given in confidence for law enforcement or security purposes;
(h) Information which would impede the process of investigation or apprehension or prosecution of offenders;
(i) Cabinet papers including records of deliberations of the Council of Ministers, Secretaries and other officers; (shall be made public after the decision has been taken)
(j) Information which relates to personal information the disclosure of which has no relationship to any public activity or interest

The concept of Public Interest Litigation (PIL) originated and developed in the USA in the 1960s.
• In the USA, it was designed to provide legal representation to previously unrepresented groups and interests.
• It was undertaken in recognition of the fact that the ordinary marketplace for legal services fails to provide such services to significant segments of the population and to significant interests.
• Such groups and interests include the poor, environmentalists, consumers, racial and ethnic minorities, and others.

As per as Corporate Social Responsibility is concerned, the Companies Act, 2013 is a landmark legislation that made India the first country to mandate and quantify CSR expenditure.
• The inclusion of CSR is an attempt by the government to engage the businesses with the national development agenda.
• The details of on corporate social responsibility are mentioned in the Section 135 of the Companies Act, 2013.
• The Act came into force from April 1, 2014, every company, private limited or public limited, which either has a net worth of Rs 500 crore or a turnover of Rs 1,000 crore or net profit of Rs 5 crore, needs to spend at least 2% of its average net profit for the immediately preceding three financial years on Corporate social responsibility activities.
• The CSR activities in India should not be undertaken in the normal course of business and must be with respect to any of the activities mentioned in Schedule VII of the act.

Meghalaya became the first state in India to operationalise a law that makes
social audit of government programmes and schemes a part of government practice. Chief Minister of Meghalaya launched ‘The Meghalaya Community Participation and Public
Services Social Audit Act, 2017’, at a national convention in Shillong.

e-Pramaan is a National e-Authentication service offered by DeitY.
•e-Pramaan provides a simple, convenient and secure way for the users to access
government services via internet/mobile as well as for the government to assess the
authenticity of the users.
•e-Pramaan builds up confidence and trust in online transactions and encourages
the use of the e-services as a channel for service delivery.

Open Government Data (OGD) Platform India – data.gov.in – is a platform for
supporting Open Data initiative of Government of India.
•The portal is intended to be used by Government of India Ministries/ Departments
their organizations to publish datasets, documents, services, tools and applications
collected by them for public use.
•It intends to increase transparency in the functioning of Government and also open
avenues for many more innovative uses of Government Data to give different
perspective.
•The Open Government Data Platform India is a joint initiative of Government of
India and US Government.
•Open Government Data Platform India is also packaged as a product and made
available in open source for implementation by countries globally.

Legal Information Management and Briefing System (LIMBS) is a web based
application created by the Department of Legal Affairs under the Ministry of Law and
Justice.
•The idea is to make the legal data available at one single point and streamline the
procedure of litigation matters conducted on behalf of Union of India.
•It is in line with Digital India to digitalise the details of court cases and bring various
stakeholders on a single platform.
•At present it is applicable to civil cases only.

COMMIT (Comprehensive Online Modified Modules on Induction Training) is
developed by DoPT in collaboration with United Nations Development Programme
(UNDP).
•Comprehensive Online Modified Modules on Induction Training (COMMIT) for State
Government officials.
•The objective of this training programme is to improve the public service delivery
mechanism and provide citizen centric administration through capacity building of
officials who interact with the citizens on day-to-day basis.
•Advantage of COMMIT is that it is cost effective and has the potential to cover about
3.3 lakh officials annually, compared to 10,000 officials under existing 12-Day
Induction Training Programme (ITP).

The Department of Consumer Affairs has launched a portal (Website) as an
integrated Grievance Redress Mechanism (INGRAM) for bringing all Stakeholders such as
Consumers, Central and State Government Agencies, Private Companies, Regulators,
Ombudsmen and call centres etc. onto a single platform.
The portal will also help in creating awareness among consumers to protect their rights and
inform them of their responsibilities. Consumers can register online their grievances
through this portal.

A key component of e-governance is to provide governments with a citizenfriendly
face. Naturally, G2C (government-to-citizens) is an important element of all egovernance
projects.
•FirstGov in the US, e-Envoy of the UK, e-Taiwan, e-Citizen in Singapore, e-Korea, e-
Malaysia, Victoria Online in Australia and Government Online in Canada are awardwinning
G2C services in the world.
•Closer home, e-Seva in Andhra Pradesh, Friends in Kerala, Sukhmani centres in
Punjab, the Lok-Mitra project in Rajasthan, Coimbatore-Online in Tamil Nadu
and BangaloreOne in Karnataka are some of the pioneering G2C initiatives in India.

The Prime Minister recently inaugurated the National Conference on
Vigilance and Anti-Corruption on the theme ‘Vigilant India, Prosperous India’.
The Central Bureau of Investigation organizes this National Conference coinciding with
‘Vigilance Awareness Week’, which is observed in India every year from 27th October to 2nd
November.
Activities in this conference would be focused on Vigilance issues aimed at raising
awareness and reaffirming India’s commitment to promotion of integrity and probity in
public life through citizen participation.

Both statements are correct.
The Development Monitoring and Evaluation Office (DMEO), NITI Aayog has
undertaken Data Governance Quality Index (DGQI) exercise to assess different Ministries
/Departments’ performance on the implementation of Central Sector Schemes (CS) and
Centrally Sponsored Schemes (CSS). It is a self-assessment-based review of data
preparedness levels across Ministries / Departments to produce a DGQI score card.
Accordingly, a survey was initiated with the objective of assessing data preparedness of
Ministries / Departments on a standardized framework to drive healthy competition among
them and promote cooperative peer learning from best practices.
# The Development Monitoring and Evaluation Office (DMEO) was constituted in September
2015 by merging the erstwhile Program Evaluation Office (PEO) and the Independent
Evaluation Office (IEO). It is an attached office under NITI Aayog, aimed at fulfilling the organization’s monitoring and evaluation (M&E) mandate and building the M&E ecosystem in India.

Both statements are incorrect.
The provisions for term and salary of CIC/ICs were changed by a RTI Amendment Act
in 2019.
Now, the act states that the salaries, allowances, and other terms and conditions of service
of the central and state CIC and ICs will be determined by the central government,
further the central government will notify the term of office for the CIC and the ICs.

Both statements are correct.
Prevention of Corruption (Amendment) Act, 2018 amended the 1988 PCA.
The amendment act introduced the offence of giving a bribe as a direct offence. However, a person who is compelled to give a bribe will not be charged with the offence if he report the matter to law enforcement authorities within seven days.

The PCA 1988 required prior sanction of the appropriate government for prosecution of serving public officials. The 2018 Amendment Act extends this protection of requirement of prior approval to any enquiry, inquiry or investigation prior to prosecution.

Accordingly, no police officer shall initiate any enquiry, inquiry or investigation against a current/former public servant for an alleged offence (where the alleged offence relates to recommendations made or decisions taken in the course of his official duties), without the prior approval of the employer government.
Such approval would not be necessary in cases which involves the arrest of a person on the spot on the charge of taking a bribe.

Statement 1 is correct. Open Government Data (OGD) Platform India is a
platform for supporting Open Data initiative of Government of India. The portal is intended
to be used by Government of India Ministries/ Departments their organizations to
publish datasets, documents, services, tools and applications collected by them for public
use.
It intends to increase transparency in the functioning of Government and also open
avenues for many more innovative uses of Government Data to give different perspective.
Statement 2 is incorrect. The Open Government Data (OGD) Platform India has been set-up
by the National Informatics Centre (NIC) in compliance with the National Data Sharing
and Accessibility Policy (NDSAP) of India.
The objective of the policy is to provide proactive access to Government owned shareable
data along with its usage information in open/machine readable format, through a wide
area of network across the country, in a periodically updated manner, within the framework
of various related policies, rules, and acts of the Government.

All of the above statements are correct.
Union cabinet recently approved the Mission Karmayogi – National Programme for Civil
Services Capacity Building (NPCSCB) with the following institutional framework:
-Prime Minister’s Public Human Resources Council,
-Capacity Building Commission.
-Special Purpose Vehicle for owning and operating the digital assets and the technological
platform for online training,
-Coordination Unit headed by the Cabinet Secretary.
The Programme will be delivered by setting up an Integrated Government Online
Training-iGOT Karmayogi Platform. Some of the guiding principles of the Programme:
– Supporting Transition from ‘Rules based’ to ‘Roles based’ HR Management.
– To emphasize on ‘on-site learning’ to complement the ‘off-site’ learning,
– To calibrate all Civil Service positions to a Framework of Roles, Activities and
Competencies (FRACs) approach.
It is also proposed to set up a Capacity Building Commission, with a view to ensure a
uniform approach in managing and regulating the capacity building ecosystem on
collaborative and co-sharing basis.
A Public Human Resources Council comprising of select Union Ministers, Chief Ministers,
eminent public HR practitioners, thinkers, global thought leaders and Public Service
functionaries under the Chairmanship of Prime Minister will serve as the apex body for
providing strategic direction to the task of Civil Services Reform and capacity building.

Statement 1 is correct. Government e Marketplace (GeM), facilitates online
procurement of common use Goods & Services required by various Government
Departments / Organisations / PSUs. GeM aims to enhance transparency, efficiency and
speed in public procurement.
It provides the tools of e-bidding, reverse e-auction and demand aggregation to facilitate the
government users, achieve the best value for their money.
Statement 2 is correct. Government has recently amended the Public Procurement
(Preference to Make in India) Order, 2017 enabling nodal Ministries and Departments to
notify higher minimum local content requirement for local suppliers.
Further, as per the Order, entities of countries which do not allow Indian companies to
participate in their Government procurement for any item, shall not be allowed to
participate in Government procurement in India for all items related to that nodal Ministry
or Department, except for the list of items published by the Ministry or Department
permitting their participation.

Statement 1 is correct. The Official Secrets Act provides punishment for
spying, espionage, disclosure of secret information.
Secret information can be any official code, password, sketch, plan, model, article, note,
document, or information. Under Section 5, both the person communicating the
information and the person receiving the information can be punished.
Statement 2 is correct. Section 8 of the Right to Information Act provides for cases of
exemption from disclosure of information. It further states under clause 8(2) that
notwithstanding anything in the Official Secrets Act, 1923 nor any of the exemptions
permissible in under RTI Act Section 8(1), a public authority may allow access to
information, if public interest in disclosure outweighs the harm to the protected interests.
Further Section 22 of the RTI Act provides for its primacy vis-a-vis provisions of other
laws, including OSA. This gives the RTI Act an overriding effect, notwithstanding anything
inconsistent with the provisions of OSA.

Section 8 of the Right to Information Act provides for exemption from disclosure of information. Some of the grounds for exemption are:
–information including commercial confidence, trade secrets or intellectual property, the disclosure of which would harm the competitive position of a third party, unless the competent authority is satisfied that larger public interest warrants the disclosure of such information
–information received in confidence from foreign Government
–information which relates to personal information the disclosure of which has no relationship to any public activity or interest, or which would cause unwarranted invasion of the privacy of the individual unless the Central Public Information Officer or the State Public Information Officer or the appellate authority, as the case may be, is satisfied that the larger public interest justifies the disclosure of such information.

Statement 1 is correct. As per article 312(2) of the Constitution the Indian Administrative Service and the Indian Police Service shall be deemed to be services created by Parliament under this article.
Statement 2 is correct. Article 311 of Constitution of India deals with Dismissal, removal or reduction in rank of persons employed in civil capacities under the Union or a State.
According to article 311, no person who is a member of a civil service of the Union or an all-India service or a civil service of a State or holds a civil post under the Union or a State shall be dismissed or removed by an authority subordinate to that by which he was appointed.