‘Ministers’ work will be audited’

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Following in the footsteps of the UPA government, the Maharashtra government has decided to hold an annual performance audit of ministers. In doing so, Maharashtra will be the first state to do such audits. Similarly, a Delivery Monitoring Unit has been set up to regularly monitor the work carried out by all departments.
“The state would be the first to undertake integrated control through the Delivery Monitoring Unit and performance audits of the work by government departments. Maharashtra has always taken pride in being the leading state in the country and has always accepted challenges. With this challenge to implement the scheme, the state will give much needed relief to the common citizen,” chief minister Ashok Chavan said on Thursday.
A meeting was held on Thursday at the Sahyadri guesthouse to discuss the performance audit system. It was attended by the CM, chief secretary, Union secretary Dr Prajapati Trivedi and Union planning commission member Arun Maira, among others. After the meeting, the CM said, “The vision documents submitted by each of the state departments have enabled us to set realistic and tangible targets for each of the departments and take steps towards achieving the same. The aim is to achieve those targets and that will be pursued through integrated control and performance monitoring,” said the CM.
The CM further said that the state was inspired by the results of the performance management system in the Prime Minister’s Office (PMO) and has formed a similar unit in the CM’s secretariat. “If implemented properly, the audit will ensure that the poor get basic and fundamental facilities and regular wages, which will reduce poverty,” Mr Chavan said.
Ms Faujiya Khan, minister of state for the general administrative department, said on the occasion that the common man should always be the focus of attention for the administration and accordingly, every department has made the common man the focus of attention, while preparing the vision document. The system when implemented, will help analyse the actual benefits of each project undertaken by each of these departments, that reached the common man.
Meanwhile, the planning commission member Mr Maira said that government policy and planning in that regard should be in a certain direction and integrated efforts should be made to achieve the set targets. Once the target is set, the efforts could be concentrated, changing the means if required with changing circumstances.