60-Points Action Plan for Specific Sectors
The Centre has taken a 60-points action plan for specific ministries and departments but mainly they focus on leveraging IT and technology for governance, improving the business climate, and upgrading the civil services. These action plans have been taken after the review meeting of PM Narendra Modi with various ministries and departments. As reported by the Indian Express The 60-point action plan includes linking birth certificates to citizenship to pushing for jobs while negotiating trade pacts, drafting a single environment Act that comprises all laws in the sector, and promoting family database design. After the meeting and decision taken, these actionable points have been sent to all secretaries as informed by the senior government officials. The Cabinet Secretary Rajiv Guba wrote to the secretaries to take immediate actions on these points and make sure that the time-bound implementation takes place.
The action Points for the business sector include- eliminating certain permissions, reducing the price of beginning a business in ten sectors and matching it with Vietnam and Indonesia, automatic clearance of notification, single-point access to all government services, incentives to states for timed land acquisition, and forest clearance, one complete Environment Act that encompasses various laws in the sector, the mentoring platform for start-ups and skilling programs for rising sectors. All these actions come under the Department for Promotion of Industry and Internal Trade, The Ministry of Environment, Forest, and Climate Change, and the Niti Ayog.
Another area that has been emphasized for improvement is the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology. The use of new technology, data, and IT to refine governance has been encouraged. The action points are to provide scholarships to underprivileged students to fulfill the digital divide. To achieve this, the development of indigenous tablets and laptops and digitization of land records are required.
In the administrative sector, emphasis has been given on capacity building- training of officers in different aspects of infrastructure, the introduction of the latest technology in higher civil services, performance-based working, institutional mechanism for addressing issues of states in a limited capacity, restructuring of departments in every 10-years.
To prepare the action plan, PM has asked departments to take an example from others who have already been successful as, the Department of Sports has been encouraged to follow the Odisha model for promoting Sports at a national level, Department of Administrative Reforms and Public Grievances has been encouraged to follow Reserve Bank of India’s Master Circulars to organize all government circulars. The plan states that the Integrated Command and Control Centre should be made available as a service so that smaller towns may get benefitted. Niti Aayog has been asked to work upon the eradication of poverty within five years. The Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs has been asked to provide residential facilities for service staff engaged in construction to prevent the development of slums. The plan stresses upon using Aadhaar for ‘bringing together beneficiary-oriented schemes of different ministries and ‘family database design may be promoted like Aadhaar. It has been stated that all government data should be made accessible by all ministries.