Structure:

Introduction:   Mention the importance of good governance.

Body:  list of the points which indicates the significance of good governance along with the current examples from Indian society  and also mention the challenges which good governance in India is facing.

Conclusion:  Give a positive outlook of good governance in Indian society along with few suggestions to improve the governance.

Supporting points:

 Good governance aims at achieving much more than efficient management of economic and financial resources or public services. It is a broad reform strategy to make government more open, responsive, accountable, democratic, as well as strengthen institutions of civil society and regulate private sector. Good Governance is a combination of efficiency concerns of public management and accountability concerns of governance. Good Governance as a prerequisite for promoting people centered development is assuming importance.

Good Governance aims at (Significance):

• Improving the quality of life of citizens
• Enhancing the effectiveness and efficiency of administration
• Establishing the legitimacy and credibility of institutions
• Securing freedom of information and expression
• Providing citizen-friendly and citizen-caring administration
• Ensuring accountability
• Using Information Technology-based services to improve citizen-government interface
• Improving/enhancing the productivity of employees; and
• Promoting organisational pluralism-State, market and civil society organisations for governance.
• Participatory system of Management and administration.
• Measuring policy performance on the basis of output not on inputs.

Along with its significance good governance also faces some of the challenges like delay in justice, criminalisation of politics, corruption, reduced participation by the people, Centralisation of administrative system, Growing incidence of violence, Environmental security and sustainable development, Challenges of globalisation liberalisation and market economy.

Carrying forward these challenges India has achieved a considerable amount of good governance through initiatives like RTI, Enactment of 73^rd and 74^th constitutional amendment act, Food security act, e-governance initiatives, etc .  But for further improvement in good governance the steps like Citizen centricity, Social audit, people participation, Political and administrative decentralization,  effective Delegation of duties,  improved accessibility to differently abled people, Grievance redressal, use of Technology can be adopted.

Additional reading:

India’s democratic institutions are required to address the following areas of concern energetically:

• State-sponsored development programmes must aim at reduction in poverty and improvement in productivity levels of workers. Towards these, poor people need to be directly involved.
• Public Expenditure Review meets should be organized periodically at village, sub- district and district levels to ensure proper utilization of funds and ownership of development programmes by the people.
• Civil service should be given clear responsibility for delivery of services in respect of approved schemes and held accountable
• One third of seats in Assemblies and Parliament should be reserved for women
• Persons chargesheeted by a competent court for heinous offences and corrupt practices should be debarred from contesting elections.
• Partial State funding of elections should be commenced urgently. • MPLADS and MLALADS schemes should be abolished.

The quality of democracy and the commitment and caliber of public servants both in the executive and in the judiciary would determine the outcome of the country’s performance in key areas – empowerment, employment and effective delivery of services.

The instruments of the State and the civil society need to be guided by the Talisman that Mahatma Gandhi prescribed for social, political and religious leadership of independent India in August 1947. It reads: “I will give you a talisman. Whenever you are in doubt, or when the self becomes too much with you, apply the following test. Recall the face of the poorest and the weakest man whom you may have seen, and ask yourself if the step you contemplate is going to be of any use to him. Will he gain anything by it? Will it restore him to a control over his own life and destiny? In other words, will it lead to swaraj for the hungry and spiritually starving millions? Then you will find your doubts and yourself melting away.”

This is relevant today as well, as in the name of rapid economic growth policy decisions are increasingly being taken giving regard to the interest of the market and big business. To reverse this process we need to give primacy to the principles of ‘antodaya’ without sacrificing growth. If that happens, good governance could be better ensured. Such governance under a sensitive leadership could provide capacity to build our inclusive polity and a future full of possibilities for everyone.