New Delhi: Trying to recover from its worst economic crisis since independence, Sri Lanka has sought assistance from India’s National Centre for Good Governance (NCGG) in reforming its civil service, bringing transparency and digital governance, senior government functionaries told ThePrint.
Established in 2014, NCCG is an autonomous institution under the Ministry of Personnel, Public Grievance and Pensions.
Sri Lanka has also sought assistance from NCGG for establishing a University of Governance and Public Policy. A senior government official told ThePrint that a delegation from NCCG led by its Director General Bharat Lal met Sri Lankan President Ranil Wickremesinghe and senior bureaucracy during a two-day visit on April 1-2 on the invitation of the latter.
“They are impressed with India’s governance model, the way the government handled the Covid pandemic, our service delivery mechanism, our digital governance and want to replicate a similar structure in Sri Lanka. They want our help with long-term institutional building in their country,” one of the senior government functionaries told ThePrint.
During the discussion, the Sri Lankan President requested that the NCGG extend the necessary help to his country based on India’s experience of digital governance and participatory policymaking to ensure faster socio-economic development and high economic growth, a statement issued by NCGG said.
The Indian delegation led by Lal also met the top bureaucracy in Sri Lanka and made a presentation on a gamut of schemes, including the Jal Jeevan Mission (JJM). “We showed them the JJM dashboard and how at a click of a button you can see on a real-time basis the progress of the scheme down to the village level. They were quite impressed with the JJM dashboard,” the official quoted earlier said.
Another government functionary said that it was Sri Lanka, which reached out to the Indian High Commission and sought a meeting with NCGG officials to understand India’s governance model. “They want our help with policy reforms and governance,” a second official said.
Lal was accompanied by Gopal Baglay, Indian High Commissioner to Sri Lanka, and other senior officials from NCGG.
Since its inception, NCGG has been focusing on issues related to good governance, social accountability, water, sanitation and hygiene, among other sectors. It has also worked extensively in areas such as primary and elementary education, decentralised planning at district and block levels, capacity building of Panchayat Raj Institutions, participatory models of learning and action, rural development, cooperatives, and public sector management, etc.
NCGG has, so far, helped 15 countries with capacity building to meet emerging challenges in governance and assured public service delivery to improve the quality of life of people. It has conducted capacity building programmes for civil servants of Maldives, Bangladesh, Kenya, Tanzania, Tunisia, Seychelles, Afghanistan, Laos, Vietnam, Bhutan, Myanmar, Cambodia among others.
“During the two-day Sri Lanka trip, the Indian delegation emphasised the positive impact of digital technology in promoting transparency, equity, inclusion, and accountability. We made a presentation on the Direct Benefit Transfer (DBT) and showed how process automation can bring speed and scale to development schemes,” the first official said.
The automation of processes, the official added, has eliminated the need for physical interactions between individuals and officers, effectively reducing opportunities for corrupt practices.
(Edited by Tony Rai)
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