T'gana govt signs MoU with CEGIS

The Finance and Planning departments of Telangana government on Wednesday signed a tripartite Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with Centre for Effective Governance of Indian States (CEGIS) for "improving socio-economic outcomes and quality of public expenditure" in the state.

The MoU was signed by K Ramakrishna Rao, Principal Finance Secretary and Principal Secretary (FAC), Planning Department and Karthik Muralidharan, Founder and Scientific Director of CEGIS, a state government release said.

The partnership is aimed at improving socio-economic outcomes and quality of public expenditure in Telangana by adopting a four-pronged approach, it said.

The approach includes, regular and independent data collection on key outcomes and processes across multiple sectors, using the data to improve performance and personnel management, strategic budgeting and planning to improve the quality of public expenditure and creating evidence based policy-roadmaps for reform in key sectors and tracking the impact of reforms on outcomes, it said.

The intellectual leadership to CEGIS is provided by Karthik Muralidharan, Tata Chancellor's Professor of Economics at the University of California, San Diego and Honorary Adviser to NITI Aayog.

He is also a Board Member and Global Chair of Education of J-PAL's education sector - the organisation co-founded by two of the winners of the Nobel Prize in Economics - Abhijit Banerjee and Esther Duflo, the release said.

Muralidharan has more than 15 years of research experience on public service delivery in Telangana and Andhra Pradesh, it said.

Collectively, the initiatives would foster a focus on outcomes and data-based goal setting, and decision-making across departments, it said.

The measures are an extension of the work done by the State government in improving development outcomes, and is aimed at propelling the state towards the target of achieving a 'Bangaru Telangana' (golden Telangana), the release added.