• Prime Minister Narendra Modi chaired the 45th meeting of PRAGATI on December 26.

• In the meeting, eight significant projects were reviewed, which included six metro projects and one project each relating to road connectivity and thermal power. The combined cost of these projects, spread across different states/UTs, is more than Rs 1 lakh crore.

• Modi stressed that all government officials must recognise that project delays not only escalate costs but also hinder the public from receiving the intended benefits.

• Noting that more and more cities are coming up with metro projects as one of the preferred public transport systems, he called for conducting workshops for cities where projects are under implementation or in the pipeline to capture the best practices and learnings from past experiences.

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, 363 projects having a total cost of around Rs 19.12 lakh crore have been reviewed till now.

Manorama Yearbook app is now available on Google Play Store and iOS App Store