PM Modi chairs 43rd PRAGATI meeting

Prime Minister Narendra Modi chaired a PRAGATI meeting to review the progress of eight key projects, spread across seven states and having a cumulative worth of around Rs 31,000 crore.

Among the projects, four were concerned with water supply and irrigation, two related to expanding national highways and connectivity, and two more related to rail and metro rail connectivity.

During the 43rd edition of the meeting, the PM also reviewed ‘Mobile Towers and 4G Coverage under USOF Projects’. Under the Universal service obligation fund (USOF), 33,573 villages with 24,149 mobile towers are to be covered for saturation of mobile connectivity.

What is PRAGATI?

• PRAGATI is the acronym for the ICT-based multi-modal platform for Pro-Active Governance and Timely Implementation.

• It is a three-tier system consisting of the PMO, Union government secretaries and chief secretaries of the states.

• The system has been designed by the Prime Minister’s Office (PMO) with the help of National Informatics Center (NIC). 

• The platform is aimed at addressing the common man’s grievances, and simultaneously monitoring and reviewing important programmes and projects of the central as well as state governments.

Its objectives are:

i) Grievance redressal

ii) Programme implementation

iii) Project monitoring.

The PRAGATI platform bundles three technologies: 

i) Digital data management

ii) Video-conferencing

iii) Geo-spatial technology. 

• It offers a unique combination in the direction of cooperative federalism since it brings on one stage the secretaries of government of India and the chief secretaries of the states.

• With this, the Prime Minister is able to discuss the issues with the concerned central and state officials with full information and latest visuals of the ground level situation.

• It is a robust system for bringing e-transparency and e-accountability with real-time presence and exchange among the key stakeholders. It is also an innovative project in e-governance and good governance. 

• The first meeting was held on March 25, 2015.

• During PRAGATI meetings, 348 projects having a total cost of Rs 17.36 lakh crore have been reviewed.

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