Govt cancels release of Good Governance Index 2023, plans next edition in 2025

As recently as December 7, the Department of Administrative Reforms and Public Grievances (DARPG) of the Ministry of Personnel, Public Grievances and Pensions was planning on releasing the 2023 index. Announcing the national campaign for redressal of public grievances, ‘Prashasan Gaon Ki Ore’, from December 19 to December 24, DARPG said in a press release that “The Assessment Report on Special Campaign 4.0, Good Governance Index 2023 and Annual Report of CPGRAMS will be released”, during the week.

Before that, in the Ministry’s annual report for 2023-2024 which was released in November, the department said: “The first GGI was released in 2019, the second GGI was released in 2021 and the third GGI 2023 has been prepared and shall be released soon.”

While sources said GGI 2023 was being planned to be released on December 23, the government decided not to go ahead with the release. The data collected from states pertained to 2023 and a release at the end of 2024 would mean that the data would be old or outdated, as per sources. The GGI exercise would be carried out again and new data collected, it is learnt.

Reached for comment, V Srinivas, Secretary, DARPG, said: “The GGI is a biennial publication of an assessment of States/UTs, and the next edition will be published in December 2025. The GGI 2021 and 2019 have been released by DARPG. The DARPG has published District Good Governance Indices for Maharashtra, Uttar Pradesh, Jammu and Kashmir, and Arunachal Pradesh, in the period 2021-2024.”

The 2021 index, which was released on December 25, 2021, by Union Home Minister Amit Shah, covered 58 indicators across 10 sectors. While Gujarat topped the composite ranking, 20 states showed an improvement in the composite scores from 2019.