From Our Special Correspondent
Daijiworld Media Network
Bengaluru, Jul 12: Health and Family Welfare Minister Dr K Sudhakar, who had participated in the Regional Conference on ‘Bringing Citizens, Entrepreneurs, and Government Closer for Good Governance’ organized by the Union government, said the key to good governance is to ensure people's participation.
He said India has had rich literature since ancient times such as Ramayana, Mahabharata, Chanakya Neeti and Shukra Neeti Sara on concepts of good governance explaining the role of king and his council of ministers.
The minister said Karnataka is a welfare state and also stated that Basavanna had already spoken about the concept of democracy as far back as during the 12th century.
“Basavanna was a social reformer who thought of the concept of Parliamentary democracy and the Anubhava Mantapa is a testimony to this,” Minister Sudhakar said. “Basavanna also ingrained the culture of Kayakave Kailasa in the people of Karnataka,” Dr Sudhakar said.
He said good governance involves listening to the common man and addressing his concerns. He further said that is the collective responsibility of the government and the bureaucracy to ensure there is participative approach at all levels of governance.
“Prime Minister Narendra Modi led by example and ensured that all of the programs were saturated. The Swachh Bharat mission he launched initially aimed to build toilets in rural areas to improve health and hygiene especially for women. As of now a total of 10 crore toilets have been built and Swachh Bharat has become a social movement. This has not only contributed to physical health but also social health,” he said.
Speaking about good governance measures implemented by the union government, the Minister said, “One must be a dreamer to be good at governance. Modi ji introduced programs like one nation one grid, one nation one card where he provided digitized Ayushman Bharat and Ration card.”
He gave examples of such good measures in Karnataka implemented by Chief Minister Basavaraj Bommai and said the government has provided scholarships to farmers’ children to promote “Empowerment Through Education.”
He also spoke about the progress India has made after the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic.
“Till date China has been struggling to manage the pandemic. I have heard that some provinces are partially closed to prevent the spread of COVID-19. India however, has administered over 200 crore doses of COVID-19 vaccine. I can say that we are close to winning against the pandemic. Some developed countries still have a vaccination of less than 40%. But in India, we have vaccinated over 90% of the population. This is an example of how important people’s participation is and shows that governance should be people centric,’’ he said.
He explained how India’s decentralization of power in the Panchayat Raj into District, Taluk and Gram Panchayats is robust and encourages participation.
Karnataka has the highest number of start-ups and attributed it to policies that promote ease of doing business and a conducive ecosystem in the government. He further stated that Karnataka has good human resources, good weather, and skilled craftsmanship. Karnataka currently has over 85 chip makers and 400+ research facilities of Multinational Companies.
Karnataka follows the ‘3R’ model of governance. R1 is to recognise the issue and opportunity. R2 is to respond to that effectively. R3 is redressing concerns comprehensively. Reform is important for progress and added: “Post COVID-19 there has been so much reform and growth. Since the Pandemic struck, we have augmented health infrastructure and also increased the Human Resource in healthcare,’’ he added.
He listed 8 pillars to measure good governance:
Participation
Rule of Law
Transparency
Responsiveness
Accountability
Consensus Oriented
Equity and Inclusiveness
Effectiveness
Efficiency.
Union Minister Jitendra Singh, Chief Secretary Vandita Sharma, Principal Secretary of DPAR Srivatsa Krishna and others were present at the event.