External Affairs Ministry develops dashboard to track key performance metrics

External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar on Wednesday said his ministry had developed a dashboard to track the key performance metrics of its individual agencies and cross-departmental activities in order to be more transparent and accountable.

Speaking at the launch of the Ministry of External Affairs' (MEA) Performance Smartboard, Jaishankar said the creation of the dashboard was one such approach to make sense of the large quantity of data a ministry received.

"By using online dashboards, government organisations can track the key performance metrics of both individual agencies and cross-departmental activities, with the aim that their use would become a standard tool in managing department and programme performance in the future," he said.

Jaishankar said it was the ministry's intention to give more power to the people and to respond to their needs in an efficient and transparent manner by being at the forefront of bringing accountability and accessibility to them.

"We believe that data empowers people. It is our intention to give more power to the people and to respond to their needs in an efficient and transparent manner by being at the forefront of bringing accountability and accessibility to them," he said.

Jaishankar added that the ministry had accordingly intensified its efforts to be "transparent and accountable".

He said the MEA's Performance Smartboard was a visual display of the most important information needed to achieve the objectives of the ministry.

"A user can, for example, with a single click, see the data on passports issued in his state since 2014 and how the passport seva kendras have grown exponentially over the years.

"The MEA Performance Smartboard can be said to be an integration of three types of dashboards -- operational (for monitoring in real time), tactical (for analysis and benchmarking) and strategic (for tracking the achievement of strategic objectives)," Jaishankar said.