Kerala wants to study Gujarat dashboard, invites criticism

While the Gujarat dashboard has attracted attention and drawn a number of officials from several states and the Centre, the move from Kerala has raised eyebrows, given that both states are ruled by bitter political rivals from opposite sides of the ideological spectrum. The Congress, which is the main Opposition party in Kerala, claimed the Left government’s move has exposed the “close relationship” between Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan and Prime Minister Narendra Modi. The state BJP said Vijayan should “learn from all BJP-ruled states about the art of good governance”.

The CPM has not reacted officially to the Opposition’s remarks but a senior party leader told The Indian Express that “the Prime Minister, during one of his interactions with Vijayan, had suggested learning from the Gujarat CM’s Dashboard”. No decision has been taken on implementing the dashboard in Kerala, the leader said.

Speaking to The Indian Express, Gujarat Education Minister Jitu Vaghani said: “It is good that the team from Kerala is visiting the CM Dashboard tomorrow. Officials from many states have already visited Gujarat to study this initiative.”

Vaghani, who is also the Gujarat government’s spokesperson, said: “The state and its people have benefited from the dashboard in every sector, be it health, education or agriculture. Various other initiatives taken by different departments of Gujarat should also be seen, studied and implemented by other states.”

The “Gujarat CM Dashboard” was set up with technical support from the National Informatics Centre (NIC) in 2018, when Vijay Rupani was chief minister.

Gujarat officials described the dashboard as a “first of its kind” operation, incorporating over 3,000 performance indicators from e-governance applications used in at least 20 different government sectors on a daily basis. It essentially gives the Chief Minister’s Office a window to the administrative machinery from the state to the village level.

Over the past two years, the dashboard has proved to be a key tool in managing the Covid situation — from data on case counts and relief measures to feedback from Covid patients who were discharged. “Also, the CM can use the dashboard, which has been installed at his official residence, to view live feed from CCTV cameras from government hospitals. From the launch of the vaccination campaign, regular feedback from beneficiaries was taken,” said an official. Rupani handed over the reigns to Bhupendra Patel last year.

Apart from a NITI Aayog delegation led by its CEO Amitabh Kant and another from Himachal Pradesh led by Chief Minister Jai Ram Thakur, teams from Arunachal Pradesh, Assam, Bihar and Karnataka, and central ministers such as Ashwini Vaishnaw and Smriti Irani, and former Union Health Minister Harsh Vardhan, have visited Gujarat to study the dashboard.

Last November, Vijayan had announced that Public Affairs Index (PAI) 2021 had ranked Kerala as the best governed in the country on various parameters.

“The Chief Minister boasts that Kerala is No.1 under his regime. It is the close relation with Modi that prompted Vijayan to study the Gujarat model. It reflects the CPM’s understanding with the BJP to destroy the Congress,’’ K Sudhakaran, who heads the Congress in Kerala, said. “Vijayan has sent the delegation when the CPM central leadership has repeatedly attacked the Gujarat model of development….”

BJP state chief K Surendran said: “Finally, Vijayan had to adopt the Gujarat model of governance. He should now abandon the failed Kerala model and roll out the Gujarat model in the state.”

The senior CPM leader, who spoke to this newspaper, referred to Vijayan’s official meetings with Modi and said it was “natural for states to take a proactive approach based on such interactions and suggestions”.