Jammu, Srinagar, Doda perform exceptionally well in majority of Governance Sectors under DGGI

Bandipora, Baramulla, Poonch fail to get place in top ranking distts
Marginal difference among districts in composite scores

Mohinder Verma

JAMMU, Jan 24: Jammu, Srinagar and Doda have performed exceptionally well in majority of the Governance Sectors under the District Good Governance Index (DGGI) while as Bandipora, Baramulla and Poonch have failed to get place in the top ranking districts. However, there is marginal difference among the districts in their composite governance scores.
The District Good Governance Index encompasses in 10 Governance Sectors and 55 Indicators with 116 data items. These sectors are Agriculture and Allied, Commerce and Industry, Human Resource Development, Public Health, Public Infrastructure and Utilities, Social Welfare and Development, Financial Inclusion, Judiciary and Public Safety, Environment and Citizen Centric Governance. These sectors carry equal weights as all are essential for an overall development of the region/district.
The analysis of sector-wise list of top three districts reveals that Jammu, Srinagar and Doda have performed exceptionally well in majority of the 10 Governance Sectors. Notable performance has also been made by Kishtwar, Ramban, Samba, Ganderbal and Anantnag districts in the sector wise ranking.
Jammu district has bagged first rank in Commerce and Industry and Citizen Centric Governance Sectors while as 2nd rank in Public Health and Public Infrastructure and Utility. Srinagar has bagged first rank in Public Infrastructure and Utility, 2nd rank in Agriculture and Allied Sector and 3rd rank in Public Health and in Citizen Centric Governance Sectors. Doda has obtained first rank in Judiciary and Public Safety Sector, 2nd rank in Environment and third rank in Agriculture and Allied Sector.
Kishtwar has obtained first rank in Agriculture and Allied Sector and 2nd rank in Citizen Centric Governance while as Ramban has secured first rank in Social Welfare and Development and 2nd rank in Commerce and Industry. Samba has bagged 3rd rank in Human Resource Development and Public Infrastructure and Utilities Sectors.
Ganderbal has received first rank in Financial Inclusion and 2nd rank in Human Resource Development. Similarly, Anantnag has received third rank in Social Welfare and Development and in Financial Inclusion sectors. Pulwama has bagged first rank in Human Resource Development Sector while as Reasi has obtained first position in Public Health and Shopian first position in Environment.
Bandipora and Baramulla districts in the Kashmir valley and Poonch in Jammu region are the only districts which have failed to figure in the top three rankings as far as 10 Governance Sectors are concerned and this indicates that district heads of the departments to which these sectors pertain are not performing up to the mark.
“The sector wise scores obtained by the districts indicate strong performance by them in one or the other sector. The analysis of scoring also suggests that there is very marginal difference among the districts in their composite governance scores”, the District Good Governance Index points out.
As far as composite ranking is concerned, Jammu, Doda, Samba, Pulwama and Srinagar are the top five performing districts while as Shopian, Poonch and Rajouri are on the bottom of the list of 20 districts. As far as division wise ranking is concerned, Jammu, Doda and Samba are on the top of the list in Jammu region while as Pulwama, Srinagar and Ganderbal are on the top three performing districts in the Kashmir valley.
“Districts being a basic unit of field administration performing various functions inter alia, regulatory functions such as law and order, land revenue/reforms, excise, registration, treasury, civil supplies and social welfare, coordinating and monitoring district/sub-district level offices of the line departments of the Government measuring their performance becomes important for proper assessment and planning which will lead to the development of the districts and region as a whole”, the Government said.
“Thus, the quality of governance mechanism at district level can be judged only by how well district administration functions and delivers the outcomes expected from them. In addition, there is a fair degree of agreement on the importance of certain essential dimensions or features of good governance like transparency, accountability, public participation, absence of corruption etc are prominent among them”, the Government further said.