Mumbai: The Maharashtra government’s 100-day report card had a shocking twist. The departments led by the three leaders of the ruling Mahayuti alliance—General Administration, led by Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis, Urban Development-2, led by Deputy Chief Minister Eknath Shinde, and Food, Civil Supplies, and Consumer Protection, headed by Deputy Chief Minister Ajit Pawar—came out at the very bottom.
Fadnavis unveiled a 100-day transformation programme for Maharashtra in December last year to ensure, what he said was, transparency, accountability and swiftness in the administration.
The Quality Council of India (QCI) conducted the final evaluation of each of the state’s 48 departments. The tasks ranged from website enhancement and grievance redressal to ease of living and use of technology.
On 14 April, the Mahayuti government completed 100 days in office, and the report was subsequently released on 1 May.
Of the 48 departments, the report said, 12 had completed 100 percent of their assigned tasks, while 18 had completed more than 80 percent of their tasks. However, the departments led by the three leaders, on the other hand, did not even cross the passing score of 35 percent.
Both Urban Development-2 and Food, Civil Supplies and Consumer Protection departments were just short of the passing mark, scoring 34 percent and 33 percent, respectively. The worst-performing department was Fadnavis’s General Administration department, which earned a dismal 24 percent.
“When the programme was designed, the intention was to keep up with public services after a huge mandate. It was to provide good governance and for the bureaucracy to rise to the challenges,” an official who was part of the programme told ThePrint. “I believe most of the departments have worked efficiently. Yes, some need to do more hard work, but I am sure, they too will rise to the occasion.”
ThePrint reached the chief secretaries of the three departments over call, text and email for comment. The report will be updated if and when a response is received.
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Only 8 tasks completed by CM’s dept
The General Administration department, headed by Chief Secretary Sujata Saunik, completed only 8 of their 34 assigned tasks. Among the tasks that it did not complete was the digitisation of leave modules that it said would be completed by 15 December.
Similarly, it said, the process of digitising employee records—from the day of joining to resignation—would be completed by 15 December.
It further said it would need time till 15 December to revise pensions and complete its tasks linked to e-services, AI-applications, and mobile apps. It wasn’t clear what these tasks were.
The Urban Development department, under Shinde, has two sub-departments under it. While Urban Development-1, which performed better, is responsible for the metro city planning, including the Mumbai and Pune metropolitan departments, Urban Development-2 largely covers the municipal corporations, nagar panchayats, and so on.
According to the report, UD-1 scored 85 percent with only five of its 34 tasks incomplete. Among the tasks it had to complete, it successfully appointed personnel in various city metropolitan departments like Pune, Chhatrapati Sambhajinagar, Nashik, and Nagpur.
It also started working on the metro project to connect the Mumbai and Navi Mumbai airports. The department also started the construction of at least 3,800 houses in Thane under the Thane CIDCO department.
However, the Metro 3-phase 2 project from Bandra Kurla Complex (BKC) to Worli has yet to be opened to the public despite the target to do so before May. In Navi Mumbai, metro lines 1B and 2 were also incomplete.
On the other hand, UD-2 failed in its completion of major tasks, with one of them being the approval of 60 proposals under Amrit 2.0 for which over Rs 5,800 crore was earmarked. According to the report card, only 16 proposals have been sanctioned till now. It did not say what these proposals were.
On the task of implementing the stormwater drain projects in various cities, the department said the work was in progress and a proposal would be sent to the cabinet in the next 15 days.
The department was also tasked with filling the various vacant posts in the UD-2 department, such as undersecretary and additional secretary, but it had yet to do so.
“Shinde will sit with the department head and go over the tasks. He normally holds meetings regularly and takes an update. Even in this case, a review meeting will be held soon,” said a close aide of the deputy CM.
Pawar took over dept in March
The Food, Civil Supplies and Consumer Protection department was earlier headed by Dhananjay Munde of Pawar’s Nationalist Congress Party (NCP). However, Munde resigned in March, citing health reasons. This came after a controversy over the murder of the Beed sarpanch Santosh Deshmukh, in which Munde’s close aide was arrested.
The department was taken over by Ajit Pawar at the time.
Some of the tasks under this department included the distribution of smart ration cards in the state and the linking of electronic weighing scales to the e-POS machines at fair price shops for the accurate distribution of food grains to beneficiaries.
According to the department, the tasks are not yet complete since a tender proposal, prepared by the department and submitted to the high power committee of the department for approval, was still pending.
“It is expected to take approximately six months to complete these tasks,” the department official said.
The department was also tasked with putting together a policy for the construction of new warehouses that would create three times the total monthly allocation currently available. This would be a total of 3.24 lakh MT of storage capacity.
Of this, the department said, administrative approval had been given for construction of 75 new godowns with a capacity of 1.28 lakh MT, in line with the required storage capacity received from regional offices. The remaining 1.96 lakh MT storage capacity, it said, would be constructed by 31 December 2025.
Among the tasks that had been completed, the were tasked with adding an estimated 25 lakh new beneficiaries who needed food security. However, while carrying out the task, the department found only 23.23 lakh beneficiaries needed to be added, and it had done so.
(Edited by Sanya Mathur)
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