Nilachala Acharya and Subrat Das

The Union Budget 2023–24 was presented recently. While new announcements and the magnitude of budget outlays for different sectors dominate the public discourse, the issue of underutilisation of budget-allocated funds goes unexamined. The Union Government transfers a large quantum of funds to the states and union territories (UTs) every year through centrally sponsored schemes (CSS), such as National Health Mission (NHM), Samagra Shiksha Abhiyan, and MGNREGS. The gross transfer of resources from the Union Budget to the states and the UTs amounts to (Footnote 1) an annual average of INR 6.87 lakh crore (FYs 2016–17 to 2023–24), which is close to 21 percent of the total Union Budget. Within this, the average annual share of CSS (during the same period) is approximately 54 percent (or 11 percent of the Union Budget). In this context, two important questions ought to be raised. First, do the union ministries know how much of these CSS funds is actually being spent by the states or, in other words, how much visibility do the union ministries have? Second, how can the visibility of funds available and the pace of fund utilisation in such schemes be improved.

Why is there a need for greater ‘visibility’ of actual utilisation of funds in the CSS?

The conventional accounting practice of the union ministries has been to record all fund advances to the states as ‘expenditure’, regardless of the proportion of those advances lying unutilised at the state, district, and sub-district levels. This hinders clear visibility of funds provided to the states and UTs. The accounting practices of the state governments have a similar limitation as the funds transferred to the implementing agencies, such as state education societies or district health societies, are recorded as expenditure. In such a scenario, the government system as a whole is unable to gauge the extent of actual utilisation of the funds released and the proportion lying unspent. This challenge of limited knowledge of how funds are spent, or limited ‘visibility’ of funds, has emerged mainly due to fragmented and incomplete expenditure information at various levels of implementation.

Further, the process of fund advances to the lower units of implementation getting reconciled with statements of expenditure (that is, expenditure records) is very slow in several sectors. For instance, when a district health society releases funds to community health centres, primary health centres, and other health sub-centres (which deliver services under the aegis of NHM), these service delivery institutions provide a statement of expenditure or utilisation certificates of the advances made by the district health society. The reconciliation process of the expenditure records with that of allocation made as advances is slow, and sometimes it takes months to verify these records.

This leads to the problem of ‘float’ in the system, that is, the existence of unspent balances at various levels of scheme implementation. It has been estimated that the interest cost of the Union Government can be reduced by at least INR 10,000 crore if the union ministries get complete visibility on the funds lying unspent at different levels in their schemes. This is because complete visibility will lead to a significant reduction in the amount of money that the Union Government has to borrow every year.

A case in point is of fund disbursal under NHM. The 14th Common Review Mission Report of NHM was published in 2021 and flagged issues of delay in fund disbursal and low levels of fund utilisation across states. Delays in releasing NHM funds from the state treasuries to the state health societies ranged from 60 days in Bihar, Odisha, Rajasthan, Uttar Pradesh, and West Bengal to 150 days in Mizoram and Puducherry. Similar instances of delay were observed in fund disbursals from the state health societies to the district health societies in these states. This resulted in delays in disbursals to the implementing agencies and vendors, who provide drugs and other essentials under NHM. It also impacted payment of incentives to ASHA workers, all in all hampering the timely, effective, and quality delivery of health services. Ultimately, the entire budgeted amount could not be spent, leaving unspent balances or ‘float’ in the system.

Given this, the Union Government introduced the mechanism of single nodal agency/single nodal account (SNA) for the CSS in July 2021. It requires every state and UT to create and maintain only one nodal bank account for every CSS in the state, leading to much greater visibility on the flow and utilisation of central shares of funds, matching contributions by states, and unspent funds in the system. The union ministries are expecting a lot more visibility in terms of funds available with the states (that is, the extent of utilisation of the funds allocated to them) and the status of matching grants contributed by the states for CSS. This will potentially help in shifting towards ‘just-in-time’ release of funds by the union ministries and improve the allocative efficiency of budgetary resources for various CSS.

The way forward

The problem of float in the fiscal governance system has given rise to a range of issues such as higher interest burden of the Union Government that is partly avoidable, delayed flow and utilisation of funds approved, poor enforcement of accountability, and suboptimal results from public expenditure in important development sectors. Obviously, addressing these issues requires coordinated efforts across all three tiers of governance. The ongoing public financial management reforms such as the introduction of the SNA model and the expenditure control measures introduced by the Union Government have the potential to address this problem to a reasonable extent. However, these might not suffice unless the state governments make significant improvements in concurrent expenditure tracking, digitisation of expenditure records, and timely release of matching grants for CSS. Such measures can eventually pave the way for optimal utilisation of available funds and further greater transparency and efficiency in management of scarce public financial resources.

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Note: This article was originally published on India Development Review and can be viewed here.

Footnotes

1. Refer to Expenditure Profile, Government of India (various years).

Know more

• Learn more about how public finance management can be reformed.
• Read about how capital expenditure has grown at the cost of social welfare in Budget 2023.
• Learn about a tool that has been developed to improve fiscal transparency in India.

Budget 2023–24: Need for greater visibility on budget flows and utilisation was originally published in Open Budgets India on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Aishwarya Bhuta, Mitali Gupta, Nilachala Acharya

There is little contention that the 21st century is a digital age wherein data is an enabler and indispensable tool for governance. As India ushers into the fourth quarter of a century of its Independence, technology-enabled and data-driven reforms shall assume much greater significance for efficient public finance management. This blog post discusses the role of Data Governance and Quality Index (DGQI) developed by the Development Monitoring and Evaluation Office (DMEO), NITI Aayog, in enhancing fiscal transparency in India. It analyses the effectiveness of the DGQI framework with respect to promoting public debates and discussions on transparency and accountability.

Physical and financial information regarding various development schemes and programmes can be accessed via Management Information Systems (MISs) and dashboards, such as Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Programme-MIS, Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojana — Urban MIS, Pradhan Mantri Fasal Bima Yojana-MIS and Pradhan Mantri Gram Sadak Yojana — Online Management, Monitoring and Accounting System. However, a need was felt for a standardised framework to evaluate the data preparedness of and availability of data in the public domain by various Ministries and Departments (M/Ds), both at the levels of Union and State Governments. It would also help to explore notable practices by some M/Ds which could be replicated for better policy implementation and outcomes.

While DGQI 1.0 emphasised mainly on data systems, its approach has expanded to integrate data strategy and data-driven outcomes in the second phase. It is being increasingly acknowledged that merely digitisation of data does not suffice; it needs to be updated in real time and managed efficiently for it to deepen and become an enabler in the governance processes. While there have been improvements noticed within the M/Ds and government agencies with regard to use of relevant fiscal data available to them, much needs to be done for strengthening public engagement by making these fiscal data available to the public in a timely manner.

The DGQI is a useful tool/framework for government agencies at both the Union and the State levels to undertake self-assessment, and for the NITI Aayog to conduct comparative assessments of the levels of data-preparedness of M/Ds. Its methodology is based on six themes under data systems as follows.

Figure 1. DGQI methodology — indicators and their respective weightage

In addition to the above, the DGQI also measures whether a particular M/D is Guidelines for Indian Government Websites (GIGW) compliant or not.

There has been an increasing demand by civil society organisations, activists, and researchers for open access to the entire spectrum of fiscal data collected with respect to the deployment of public funds. Openness of data availability is an enabler for dialogues and debates which foster inclusive and participatory decision making.

According to the National Data Sharing and Accessibility Policy (2012), the guiding principles of data sharing and accessibility include Openness, Flexibility, Transparency, Legal Conformity, Protection of Intellectual Property, Formal Responsibility, Professionalism, Standards, Interoperability, Quality, Security, Efficiency, Accountability, Sustainability and Privacy. The below table presents a summary assessment of the DGQI framework on some of these parameters related to promoting and enhancing public debates in the fiscal governance discourses in India.

Way Forward

In a nutshell, the DGQI framework is promising in terms of its intent and approach. It can be instrumental in facilitating deepening of the digitisation processes among government platforms to disseminate data. However, in order for it to advance fiscal transparency, it needs to be made more accessible in various Indian languages. Several notable practices such as the Jan Soochna portal and Digital Dialogues of the government of Rajasthan, which covers information regarding 260 schemes across 115 departments and public authorities, and the Avalokana software of the government of Karnataka, which provides disaggregated fiscal data at the district levels and below, must be replicated by other states. Such interventions can pave the way for much needed fiscal transparency and accountability in the functioning of various M/Ds to achieve better governance outcomes.

Going forward, it is indeed expected that the DGQI would include data collection and standardisation at the district level, which is perceived as an important unit of governance to address regional imbalances in the country. The fiscal data pertaining to development schemes captured through Single Nodal Agency (Account) could serve the basis of public engagement in enhancing fiscal transparency. Similarly, district-wise disaggregated fiscal information of development schemes presented through District treasuries and treasuries at the Taluk levels (a case in point is BEAMS), should be promoted and replicated in all the districts of India.

Authors work with Centre for Budget and Governance Accountability (CBGA), New Delhi. Views expressed are of the authors, and do not necessarily reflect the position of CBGA.

Data Governance Quality Index — A Tool to Improve Fiscal Transparency in India was originally published in Open Budgets India on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Transparency in budgets at all levels of governance is crucial for ensuring a healthy public finance management (PFM) system. It strengthens the accountability ecosystem around budgets and helps in formulating better policy decisions at various tiers of government. Availability and accessibility of fiscal information help facilitate public engagement with budgetary processes leading to meaningful public discourse around PFM issues. Recognising this, the Fifteenth Finance Commission also recommended making budget documents available in the public domain both offline and online, so that citizens have access to such data.

Need for budget transparency at the level of states

In India, budgets are made at three levels, viz. Union, States, and Local Governments. Transparency in budgets at all three levels of governance is equally important for the smooth functioning of the system, optimum utilisation of resources, and effective implementation of planned interventions (including schemes and programmes). Since governments at the sub-national levels (i.e., States and below) are increasingly being held responsible for fund utilisation and programme implementation in various sectors, transparency in budgets at these levels is of utmost importance.

Timely online availability of budget documents and data in an accessible and easy-to-comprehend manner is the foremost criterion to ensure transparency in budgets. Moreover, the availability of fiscal data at sub-national levels in a disaggregated form enables citizens to hold the government accountable for the services it provides.

As of today, all Indian states have started publishing their budget documents online. However, different state governments follow different practices for developing and publishing budget information/documents online. Budgets published by the state governments bring forth nuances of allocations and expenditures which are also relevant at the district level because a significant amount of funds flow into districts from state governments.

Given this context, we present a brief assessment of the online availability of fiscal information at the level of states along with a few recommendations for improvement, which will, in turn, lead to greater citizenry engagement in the fiscal governance discourse.

Initiatives on availability of budgetary information

Various initiatives have been undertaken by the Government of India (GoI) to promote e-governance (including the availability of budgetary information) along the entire spectrum of governance.

As defined by opendefition.org, “Open data and content can be freely used, modified, and shared by anyone for any purpose”.

One such initiative is the National Data Sharing and Accessibility Policy (NDSAP) published in March 2012. The focus of NDSAP is to ensure proactive disclosure of government-owned “non-strategic data in public domain” and “empowering the citizens to secure access to information under the control of public authority leading to the transparency and accountability in the working of every public authority”¹. It is also called as India’s ‘Open Data’ policy. Budgets form an integral part of the shareable data listed under NDSAP. The implementation guidelines of this policy specify the standards for publishing budgets online.

Further in 2015, GoI launched the ‘Digital India’ programme with a vision to transform India into a digitally empowered society and knowledge economy. It is centered on three key vision areas which promote ‘Digital Empowerment of Citizens’. With a focus to make government documents accessible to citizens anytime, anywhere, it emphasises making citizen-related documents available electronically in a standard format and making them accessible to citizens through web portals and mobile applications.

Universally accessible digital resources, availability of digital resources / services in Indian languages, collaborative digital platforms for participative governance etc. are among the key areas covered in the programme.

Snapshot of the state budget documents published online

Based on the principles outlined in the NDSAP and the Digital India programme, we have identified seven key parameters to assess the online availability of budget data of state governments². The assessment below takes into consideration the availability of the budgetary information/documents published on the web portals/websites developed and maintained by State Governments. It provides a snapshot of how the states fare in terms of the following indicators:

(1) Availability of data and documents: It implies making relevant budget data and documents available in the public domain (through online mediums) in the appropriate formats. Currently, all the states web-publish their budget data and documents on online portals (through state finance departments’ web portals and websites). However, not all the relevant budget documents and data are made available in one place or on designated web portals. For instance, documents like the Annual Activity Reports of the administrative departments, Finance Commission Reports, etc. are not available on the web portals of the State finance department of several States.

(2) Accessibility and Comprehensibility: It implies publishing fiscal information in machine-readable formats such as Open Document Formats for Spreadsheets (ODS), Comma Separated Values (CSV), or Excel (XLS, XLSX), and HTML for helping the users to reuse the data. At present, Odisha is the only State that publishes the budget data online in Excel format (Sikkim used to do it till FY 2020–21).

(3) Readability: It implies the publication of fiscal information including budget documents in at least bilingual forms (vernacular language as well as English/Hindi). States, namely Andhra Pradesh, Assam, Bihar, Gujarat, Himachal Pradesh, Jammu and Kashmir, Jharkhand, Karnataka, Kerala, Maharashtra, Odisha, Punjab, Tamil Nadu, Telangana, and Uttarakhand publish their budget documents (at least some if not all) in more than one language.

(4) Usability: It implies that the fiscal information must be presented in a disaggregated form, both for vulnerable sections of the society such as gender, children, persons with disabilities, minorities, etc., and social and economic sectors, such as agriculture, nutrition, climate, etc. to help the users understand the States’ budgetary priorities towards these issues/ sectors. Many States present special budget statements focussing on different sections of society as well as sectoral statements. The table below provides the information in this regard:

(5) Completeness: It implies that complete fiscal information / data must be made available in the public domain and it should be supplemented with metadata that describes and explains the variables in the raw data, along with formulas and explanations for how derived data is estimated. No State web portals provide any metadata, descriptions, or guides to help understand the data they provide for the users.

(6) Timeliness: It implies that data must be published on a real-time basis. To facilitate long-term analysis and year-wise comparisons, it is recommended that fiscal data for at least previous 10 years should be made available online. Most States publish their State Budget documents online on the same day the budget is presented. States for which the budget data is not available online for 10 years or more include Arunachal Pradesh, Assam, Bihar, Jammu and Kashmir, Manipur, and Telangana.

(7) Relevance: It implies that publication of budgetary information should be done using charts, tables, figures, and other visualisations that help demystify complex fiscal data. Along with this, disaggregated data should be presented in the budget documents / papers / reports to facilitate debate and discussion among various stakeholders and the public at large. Many States like Rajasthan, Punjab, Telangana, Jharkhand, Haryana, etc. provide such visualisations in different budget documents. States like Andhra Pradesh, Odisha, Kerala, etc. have developed dedicated dashboards / portals to display budget information using visualisations.

From the assessment exercise, it is clearly evident that despite having an Open Data Policy in existence for the past ten years, only one State publishes budget documents in Excel format. Similarly, states adopt varied approaches to making budget data relevant- while some states provide charts and visualisations in different documents like Budget at a Glance, Budget Briefs, or Budget Summary, some others have dedicated portals for Budget Data Analytics. Evidently, there is a long way to go to achieve fiscal transparency at sub-national levels, and making data available online in standardised formats is just the first step towards it.

What can Governments do?

(1) Orientation of Government Officials: Government officials from various departments must be thoroughly oriented on the meaning and need of open fiscal data. Training sessions on open data formats, conversion of data to open data formats, metadata, and other technical aspects must be conducted periodically.

(2) Learning from Best Practices: Some States perform better than others in terms of online publishing of fiscal information. These can help other States through consultations and workshops that highlight the challenges and learnings from their own experiences.

(3) De-jargonizing Budget data: Making data available is a necessary but insufficient condition to promote public engagement. If the available data is loaded with jargons and technical concepts, it can deter citizens from engaging with this data. It is therefore important to publish budget documents that provide guides or explanatory documents to deconstruct both technical terminology and data. It is worth noting that the Government of Tamil Nadu publishes one such document, titled Citizen’s Guide to Budget, which helps citizens understand the various aspects of the State’s Budget through visual representations and graphics.

(4) Partnering with Civil Society Organisations: Civil Society Organisations can play an important role in partnering with Governments to enhance fiscal transparency. For instance, one such initiative is Open Budgets India (OBI) — An Open Data Portal on Budgets in India³. It provides budget documents for all States, for various years. The Government of Assam (GoA) has been providing its budget data in excel format to OBI to present analytics and visualisations that increase the usability and relevance of its budget data. This engagement has also facilitated the publishing of budget data of GoA in machine-readable formats along with metadata on the OBI portal through Assam Budget Explorers. More states should explore the possibility of utilising civil society expertise through collaborative partnerships.

The need and importance of transparent budgets only increase as we go down from national to sub-national levels. The ease with which citizens can access fiscal data at their State and district levels is an important determinant of their ability to demand accountability in public spending. While some efforts have been made by State Governments towards the provision of fiscal data in the public domain, it remains to be seen how States improve the ‘openness’ of this data.

Authors acknowledge the inputs and insights shared by Dr. Nilachala Acharya and Dr. Mitali Gupta (CBGA). Authors work with Centre for Budget and Governance Accountability (CBGA), New Delhi. Views expressed are of the authors, and do not necessarily reflect the position of CBGA.

Citations and Footnotes

1. For further reference: https://dst.gov.in/national-data-sharing-and-accessibility-policy-0
2. It is crucial that relevant budgetary information should be made available timely in public domain (on both offline and online mediums) in appropriate formats. However, this piece is assessing the status of availability of these on online mediums only.
3. OBI is a comprehensive and user-friendly open data portal that facilitates free, easy and timely access to relevant data on government budgets in India. It can be accessed here: https://www.openbudgetsindia.org/.

Online Availability of Fiscal Information: How do States Fare? was originally published in Open Budgets India on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Suraj Jaiswal

In a democracy, elected governments are entrusted with a number of powers and responsibilities, including managing public resources and spending it as deemed fit for the welfare of masses. The members of the government are not the owners of the public finance, but they are expected to manage it in a manner that is best suited for the benefit of the citizens. For citizens and other non-government actors to be able to evaluate the government’s management of public resources, the relevant information needs to be made public.

A transparent fiscal regime is helpful in curbing corruption and building better trust between the citizenry and the government. It is also useful in creating a wider dialogue on government policies, and hence weeding out inefficient and / or ineffective policies and practices.

Owing to such desirable outcomes, transparency in government’s management of public resources is considered an essential feature of democratic governance.

What information regarding public finance needs to be made public, in what format and what other attributes it should have, all such details combined are broadly known as transparency code. Arguably, the most often used transparency code by governments worldwide is the one devised by the International Monetary Fund (IMF). First envisaged in 1998, it has seen continuous evolution over time. The current code was revised in 2014, and then further changes were made in 2019.

The code has a three layered structured with Pillars, Dimensions and Principles.

There are four main pillars, and each of these pillars are divided into multiple ‘Dimensions’, each of which is further divided into many ‘Principles’. These principles are, in essence, the foundations of IMF’s code on how government’s fiscal management can be made more transparent.

This article briefly explains the four pillars, the dimensions and the principles in the IMF transparency code.

1. Fiscal Reporting — This pillar basically deals with what fiscal information should be reported, how to maintain the quality, and when it should be reported. There are four dimensions to it as follows:

a. Coverage — it lists all the relevant information which should be covered in reports. The four principles under it described are coverage of institutions, stocks, flows, and tax expenditure.

b. Timeliness — this dimension is about when reports should be published. Two principles under this dimension suggest that reports should be published frequently, regularly, and in timely manner.

c. Quality — it explains what attributes the information should have. It suggests that information should be relevant, presented in format that can be compared internationally, and should have consistency — internally as well as historically. Three principles under it are about the consistency, classifications and disclosure of revisions.

d. Integrity — this dimension is about the reliability of the information presented in the report. There are three principles under it, and they refer to statistics presented according to well defined standards, being audited by an independent institution, and fiscal data being comparable throughout the report as well as with other reports published according to international standards.

2. Fiscal Forecasting and Budgeting — Budgets inherently involve forecasting, because they are about the future. This pillar posits that reports about budgets should clearly mention with what objective(s) the policies have been made, and it should have credible projections about the public finances. There are four dimensions as follows:

a. Comprehensiveness — the budget and the forecasts associated should provide a comprehensive view about the situation related to public finance. There are four principles under it, they refer to reporting of all the revenue, costs and finances approved by the legislature; all the relevant forecasts and related methodology properly disclosed and explained; the projections for medium term and government’s plan to adjust any overruns; and the government’s obligations towards all the multi-year investments. Essentially all indicators that have implications for government’s finances should be reported.

b. Orderliness — the process of preparation of budget, the powers of executive and legislative branches should be defined in the law. There are two principles under this dimension, and they refer to the legal framework about the various aspect of budgetary processes and the institutions involved, and publication of relevant budget documents.

c. Policy Orientation — the presentation of budgetary documents and forecasts should be such that it facilitates engagement by the public and demand of accountability from the government. Three principles under it suggest that all the policy objectives and all the results achieved should be published in a manner that is accessible to the general public.

d. Credibility — budget documents should provide credible information and forecasts. Three principles to achieve this are evaluation of budget by independent entity, all the changes in the budget to be authorised by legislature, and all the revisions to be properly explained.

3. Fiscal Risk Analysis and Management — Given that the budget involves projections and execution in the future, there are inherent risks associated with it. All such risks should be analysed, and proper strategy to manage be put in place. There are three dimensions under this pillar:

a. Risk Disclosure and Analysis — all risk to public finance should be analysed and disclosed in proper format and timely manner. The three principles under it are about the types of risks, they are macroeconomic, sector specific, and long-term sustainability.

b. Risk Management — all relevant risks to public finance of the country should be properly monitored and regularly analysed, and proper strategies to manage them should be put in place. The seven principles under it lists different types of risks that should be considered. They cover issues such as — contingency plans, liability and guarantees given by the government, risks related to financial sector, risks related to natural resources and environment.

c. Fiscal Co-ordination — Government structure in a country is generally complex because of scale of operation, political structure, multiple objectives and constraints government has to operate under. Such structure leads to a situation where government entities include many independent, quasi-independent or interdependent entities. Broadly, such entities can be of two types — sub-national governments, and public sector enterprises. Such entities often work with each other and there are overlaps in functionalities. All relevant information, like performance and financial indicators, for such entities should be reported in proper consolidated forms.

4. Resource Revenue Management — Government raises receipts from multiple sources, like taxation, public sector enterprises, user-fees, natural resources, etc. Among all these, natural resources need special consideration because of the possibility of misuse/abuse as well their impact on environment. All relevant information regarding different aspects of resource of government is to be properly recorded and made publicly available. There are four dimensions under this pillar, as follows:

a. Resource Ownership and Rights — who has the rights to exploit the natural resources should be properly defined in law. Also, the process of allocation of rights to individual or any legal entity should be properly recorded and transparent. Three principles under this refer to the legal framework related to the ownership of natural resources, the process of allocation of rights, and the disclosure norms about the ownership.

b. Resource Revenue Mobilization — how natural resources should be used to generate revenue for the government, what should be the scale, who should have the responsibility and what should be the process, all these things need to be defined clearly in the law. Two principles to achieve this are about the fiscal regulations and the administration of revenue generation and collection.

c. Resource Revenue Utilisation — the revenue generated from natural resources needs to be utilised in a manner best aligned with overall fiscal objective of the government. Towards this objective, there are three principles — revenue forecasting to be done in a methodological sound and transparent manner, the revenue to be properly budgeted in accordance with the fiscal policy of the government, and in case the revenue from the natural resources is going towards an independent fund, then the governance, disclosure and reporting of the same to be properly defined in law.

d. Resource Activity Disclosure — usage of natural resources includes a number of steps and actors. Apart from revenue, they also generate externalities like impact on environment and on the society nearby. All such processes and impacts should be properly recorded and published. There are four principles under this dimension, and they refer to reporting of information as well as their reliability which can be ensured through audit, clearly defined governance guidelines, and the assessment of environment and social impact.

Given the expansive nature of government’s activities, multiple sources of revenue, multiple objectives, risks and uncertainty involved, managing public finance is a difficult process. Nonetheless, it is the duty of the government to follow best public finance management practices. One essential aspect of this is making the relevant information available and accessible to public. The transparency code by International Monetary Fund (IMF) as described above is a useful and much followed code to help governments achieve the goal of fiscal transparency.

How Governments Can Ensure Transparency — Views from IMF was originally published in Open Budgets India on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

The age of digitalization saw millions of government records move from offline to online formats. However, the benefits of this change did not reach ordinary citizens in terms of improving their access to basic rights and essential public services. Instead, governments created databases and information architectures that were opaque, in terms of the logic that drove their design and its use. Digital locks came in the form of “administrative logins” wherein information collected, compiled and generated was available only to those who had state authorized usernames and passwords to access to the same. This resulted in the administration and State having privileged access to information which it used for closed door monitoring and decision making.

At the same time, citizens face a plethora of public grievances on account of inadequate budgetary allocations, vacancy in staff positions, poor communication of citizen entitlements, elaborate application and processing norms, discretion in sanctioning, denial, corruption, wrongful exclusion etc. The absence of systematic disclosure of information across all stages of the planning, application, verification, sanction and expenditure process has led to poor enforcement of accountability on public officials when citizens’ rights were violated. Therefore, there is a tremendous divergence between the State and the citizen in terms of access to actionable information and the utility of the said information for public purposes. Information systems that dictated what information from citizens would be collected, how they would be compiled, what decisions they would drive were all conceptualized and designed to meet the needs of the administrator. Hence the term, “Management Information System” (MIS) where only those pieces of information that the administration decides to put out in the public domain is made public.

Therefore, there exists a severe imbalance between the ability of the State to collect information about individuals and the ability of people, individually and collectively, to use information to question the State and hold it accountable to minimum standards of performance. The Jan Soochna Portal and the ‘Digital Dialogues’ that led to its creation are important breakthroughs in correcting this imbalance. The Jan Soochna Portal of the Government of Rajasthan proactively discloses information regarding 260 schemes across 115 State departments and public authorities. In a span of two and a half years, the website has received more than a 100 million visits. It contains a spectacular diversity of information. It discloses in the public domain disaggregated, demystified and actionable information with respect to: National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (NREGA), toilets constructed under Swachh Bharat Mission, works constructed by the Panchayat under Finance Commission Grants, distribution of free medicines, Ayushman Bharat, Right to Information (RTI) applications, Ration distribution, loan waivers to farmers, functioning of educational institutions, special benefits to labour and specially abled persons, distribution of social security pensions, mining lease contracts and payments, land title distribution under Forest Rights Act amongst others. The information is being provided in an unhindered manner, where no usernames and passwords are required to access the above information. Information on the portal is arranged according to geography so that citizens residing in a particular Panchayat or Municipal Ward can access information about themselves and public institutions in their geographical area. It is important to bear in mind that more than a 100 RTI applicants paid with their life for seeking information that ought to have been proactively disclosed in the public domain by the State, as is mandated under Section 4 of the RTI Act. Portals like the Jan Soochna Portal ought also to be recognized as a preventive measure against future cases of intimidation against RTI applicants and whistle-blowers.

However, in the case of the Jan Soochna Portal , the means has been as important as the end. The portal has been built based on dialogue and conversation with users of information, practitioners and activists through institutionalized interactions between the State and civil society organizations known as “Digital Dialogues”. Civil Society Organizations conceptualized and advocated for this portal to demonstrate how digital technology should be used for empowering citizens to access their rights with the least effort and how information should be made available proactively in the public domain for every scheme so that citizens can identify when their rights are being violated and why, and can seek answers from the administration for it. These dialogues were initiated at the request of civil society, and were also claimed by them. They were characterized by government officials who could not fathom why they even had to explain their decision on why certain information would or would not be disclosed. It took consistent effort over four years to bring the dialogues to a point where they are now organised on a monthly basis under an administrative mandate, and where participation of officials is mandatory. Any denials of requests to make information public by the State Department are required to be legally justified (particularly under what exemption clause of the RTI Act is the disclosure of this information is being denied).

The process of these digital dialogues taught all those of us involved with it that consultative processes to drive reform are not a one-time event where everyone’s suggestions are taken down, and the State is left to decide which inputs it would incorporate and which it wouldn’t. They are a continuous and collective process where representatives of movements, networks, campaigns, organizations and ‘domain experts’ need to consistently engage in dialogue with the State to claim their right to information, and hold them accountable for the inputs they give to the process.

The journey of the Jan Soochna Portal and the digital dialogues reminds us all once again that political and democratic processes need to be at the centre of digital and information rights advocacy. The means always remain as important as the ends.

Rakshita Swamy leads SAFAR-Social Accountability Forum for Action and Research. The views expressed in the piece are born out of a collective process of action and reflection of civil society organisations involved in the digital dialogue process in Rajasthan.

Jan Soochna Portal and Digital Dialogues Need Replication across States was originally published in Open Budgets India on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Introduction

After almost three decades of constitutionalising city governments, Praja’s Urban Governance Index is timely and serves the dual purpose of assessing the state of urban governance reforms and informing further policy-making in this space. Since urban local bodies play a crucial role in the provision of urban amenities like water supply, drainage, waste management, etc., a tool that monitors the progress of different aspects of urban governance is always useful for urban local bodies (ULBs) to improve their services. The index becomes particularly relevant for ensuring accountability of such bodies and presenting a comparable assessment of performance across ULBs and having a baseline for further assessment in future.

The Urban Governance Index (UGI)

The Urban Governance Index (UGI) was launched by Praja Foundation in 2020 to measure how empowered city governments in India are. This structural empowerment, as enabled by State governments, has been analysed through the extent of empowerment across four aspects of city governance- Empowered City Elected Representatives and Legislative Structure, Empowered City Administration, Empowered Citizens and Fiscal Empowerment. Under each of these 4 heads, using 13 sub-themes and 42 indicators, Indian states have been scored and ranked on the level of empowerment of their city governments. One of the key highlights of this initiative is that it provides an interactive dashboard where users can change weights for different indicators to create their own rankings based on a particular aspect of city governance to assess performance in specific fields.

Assessing Fiscal Empowerment of Urban Local Bodies

Fiscal Empowerment is an essential aspect of urban governance and refers to a city government’s autonomy in raising its own financial resources, along with a vertical devolution of financial resources from the Union and State governments. While the 74th Constitutional Amendment empowers city governments to raise their own revenues, the streams of revenue and the powers to appropriate and collect the revenues have been left with State governments to determine. Depending on the provisions made in different State Municipal legislations, there has been a large variation in the level of fiscal autonomy noticed across city governments in India. The UGI assesses the extent of fiscal empowerment in city governments through the three sub-themes of Devolution of Financial Power, Systemic Financial Transfers, and Financial Accountability. Devolution of Financial powers is reflected through the powers to introduce and determine taxes and tax rates, plan and approve city budgets and raise money from the open market. Systemic Financial Transfers reflect healthy fiscal federalism through an active State Finance Commission and a direct share of Goods and Services Tax (GST) for city governments. Financial accountability, the last sub-theme under fiscal empowerment, is reflected through online publication of city budgets and provision for external auditing of city budgets. While each aspect under this broad parameter is important in its own way, the present article focuses on documenting evidence on enhancing financial and fiscal transparency and accountability for effective city governance in the country.

Financial Accountability

Ensuring adequate financial accountability is considered as the cornerstone of the functioning of a vibrant local government and is an important way for city governments to represent the interests of its citizens. Citizens must have access to reliable, relevant and timely information on how their money is being used to develop their city and financial accountability plays a crucial role in ensuring this. Similarly, a system evaluating the utilisation of public money by the local government must be institutionalised through external audits that are independent of local governments.

In the UGI, Financial Accountability has the following two indicators:

● Provision for publishing city budgets online

● Provision for external audits

Currently, nine states in the country (Andhra Pradesh, Jharkhand, Kerala, Maharashtra, Madhya Pradesh, Mizoram, Punjab, Tamil Nadu and Telangana) have mandatory provisions for online publishing of city budgets and accounts in their respective municipal laws. Similarly, all states except two (Manipur and Meghalaya) have mandatory provisions for conducting external audits. While online availability of city budgets and provisions for external audits does ensure financial accountability, they do not always ensure the engagement of citizens in the fiscal aspects of city governance.

Towards Fiscal Accountability and Transparency

Unlike Union and State governments in India, Municipal Corporations do not produce budgets in a timely manner and lack the level of standardisation recommended in the National Municipal Accounts Manual issued by the Union Government. The expenditure reported in municipal budgets often remains non-disaggregated, with some municipal corporations classifying expenditure into sectors while some others classifying it into functions. Another prevalent issue is the accessibility of municipal budget documents- even though budget documents are uploaded in the public domain, they are often published as scans of hard copies or in non-machine readable formats, making it difficult to access and use. Many municipal corporations also publish budget documents much later than the enactment of the budget, hindering timely availability of fiscal information for effective citizen engagement, which is considered one of the strongest pillars of budget transparency. While publishing and auditing of accounts do ensure financial accountability, making fiscal data available and accessible in a timely manner in multilingual formats will increase its usability and certainly play an important role in advancing financial transparency.

While the UGI is a very useful assessment tool for ranking states on the basis of their relative performance in particular facets of urban governance, a more helpful measure of fiscal empowerment must extend the indicators of financial accountability to fiscal accountability. The first step towards this would be to track citizen participation in fiscal governance issues. While Praja’s UGI does acknowledge the importance of empowering citizens by way of a freely accessible open data portal as well as the existence of mechanisms for their consultation, inclusion of a measure of the extent of citizens’ participation would indicate a more fiscally accountable local government.

For instance, Pune city topped the quality of urban governance in 2018 based on Janaagraha’s ASICS Survey which includes aspects such as urban planning, design, capacities and resources, level of transparency and accountability including participation and empowered political representation. Pune Municipal Corporation promotes active citizen engagement through social media, newsletters and Pune Smart City Ideas Competitions. Pune’s progress on the urban front to a large extent may hence be attributed to its focus on citizens participation at all stages of the budget cycle. Interestingly, India still lags behind in terms of active participation of citizens in its city governance as per surveys. One initiative towards addressing this has been the MyCityMyBudget initiative by Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike (BBMP) for instance, wherein citizens from different wards contribute through budget inputs.

Without doubt, Praja’s UGI index is a timely and useful tool to assess fiscal empowerment as well as accountability in urban local governance. The way forward should also envisage greater importance to citizen’s participation through inputs as well as social audits for increased fiscal accountability. Moreover, there is a need to go beyond the binary framework of measuring transparency, i.e., looking beyond the disclosure norms of availability of data and documents. The extent of citizen engagement in the fiscal governance discourse by using available fiscal information to strengthen service delivery mechanisms of local governments is key to enhancing the accountability framework of local governments. By expanding financial accountability to fiscal accountability, performance indicators of urban localities would improve even faster and laggard cities would also become motivated and empowered to perform better.

Authors work with Centre for Budget and Governance Accountability (CBGA), New Delhi. Views expressed are of the authors, and do not necessarily reflect the position of CBGA.

The Urban Governance Index: A useful Assessment tool to enhance fiscal transparency was originally published in Open Budgets India on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Suraj Jaiswal

Evaluating the performance of the government is not merely an academic exercise, but it has serious implications for the day-to-day lives of everyone. Such evaluations not only help citizens demand better accountability, but they can also help the government understand the deficiencies, and address them, to improve their performance.

There are various means by which the performance of the government can be examined. One method is studying the outcome of the government’s policies for which social scientists have devised a number of measures, like health indicators, education indicators, income indicators, multidimensional poverty indicators, crime indicators, and so on. Measuring these indicators, and studying them in conjunction with relevant government policies can help understand the efficacy of the policies.

Another way of evaluating the government’s performance is to examine the processes through which governments design and implement policies pertaining to public finances, a subject broadly known as ‘Public Financial Management’ (PFM). Essentially, PFM refers to the government’s management of its resources, and it involves decisions like where to raise resources from, where to spend, how to spend among others.

From late 1980s, PFM as a subject has received wide attention in the academic and policy circles. This period has also coincided with the development and refinements in the understanding of practices related to PFM. One such milestone in the development of PFM has been the creation of the Public Expenditure and Financial Accountability (PEFA) framework.

What is PEFA?

PEFA is a framework to evaluate the strengths and weaknesses of the PFM practices of a government using quantitative scores to measure the performance. In other words, under PEFA framework, different PFM related aspects of a government are evaluated and given a score. The quantitative nature of the scores also allows comparison of PFM practices across countries, as well as across different time periods.

PEFA framework was first introduced in 2001 by seven international development partners — The European Commission, the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank, and the governments of France, Norway, Switzerland, and the United Kingdom. In 2019, Slovak Republic and Luxembourg also joined as partners. Currently, PEFA secretariat is located in the World Bank’s office in Washington, DC, USA.

Since its introduction in 2001, the PEFA framework has seen improvements in methodology to evaluate PFM practices. In the methodology currently in use, the framework evaluates government’s performance on seven broad areas of activities, known as pillars. These are as follows–

1. Budget Reliability — Government budgets are prepared before the start of the financial year, and then the implementation of the budget is done through the year. Generally, the final execution turns out to be different from the projections/plans made in the budget. This measure is aimed at evaluating the degree to which execution matches the budgetary plans/projections.

2. Transparency of Public Finance — This pillar of PEFA tries to assess if the information regarding the PFM meets the criteria set out in the methodology in terms of comprehensiveness, consistency, and accessibility to the users.

3. Management of Assets and Liabilities — An important aspect of PFM is the management of government’s assets and liabilities in a way that is prudently planned, approved by appropriate authorities, and monitored effectively. This pillar tries to examine the performance of the government on these aspects.

4. Policy-Based Fiscal Strategy and Budgeting — Government’s objectives are multifold, complex, and can be spread over a long-time horizon. It is imperative that government policies are made with consideration of appropriate strategic plans, fiscal policies, and suitable projections of various macroeconomic and fiscal variables. This measure focuses if the PFM process adheres to these principles.

5. Predictability and Control in Budget Execution — Generally, the budget is approved by a centralised parliament, the responsibility of execution is shared much broadly by the bureaucratic structure of the country, and it may include other stakeholders. Large numbers of actors involved creates the risk that execution may differ across the actors, as well as from the plan on which the budget is made. There can also be the risk of misuse of public resources. These risks can be managed if there are proper standards and controls defined, and are put to use. This pillar of PEFA is aimed to assess if there are standards and controls defined to ensure that execution happens as planned in the budget, and if these standards and controls are used widely in practice.

6. Accounting and Reporting — This measure evaluates if all the relevant information is recorded, maintained, produced and disseminated at required times to all the relevant stakeholders for effective control over the purse and fulfils the purpose for which public funds have been put to use.

7. External Scrutiny and Audit — An important aspect of sound PFM practice is the review (audit) of the government’s budgetary policies and processes by an independent entity. The review is followed by a recommendation for improvement. This pillar tries to assess if the requirements regarding external review are followed.

While these seven pillars cover all aspects of PFM, the framework has a three-tier system for evaluation, which consists of pillars, indicators and dimensions. Each pillar is further divided into different components, which total number to 31 and are referred to as indicators. Each indicator is then spread across various dimensions. There are total 94 dimensions within the current framework.

The dimensions are where the quantitative scoring is done. For each government (national as well as sub-national) to be evaluated, data is collected on each of these 94 dimensions, and a score is assigned to each dimension.

The scoring is done out of a four-point scale from ‘D’ to ‘A’, where D represents the lowest score and A the highest. The score is based on following standards–

A) high level of performance that meets good international practices

B) sound performance in line with many elements of good international practices

C) basic level performance

D) less than basic level of performance. Also, if there is insufficient information

The scores are then converted to numerical scores of values 1 to 4. Taking into scores of dimensions, the final PEFA score for each pillar is calculated which indicates how the government has performed. Generally, the quantitative scores are also accompanied by explanations behind those scores.

The assessment is generally done by a country research partner organisation, which is selected by the PEFA secretariat for this specific purpose.

Gender Responsive Budgeting in PEFA Framework

Gender responsive budgeting is a framework of public policy based on the idea that there are many issues whose impact may not be the same across all genders. Hence policies need to be designed addressing the gender differential aspect.

Recognising its necessity and growing impact, in January 2020, PEFA launched Gender Responsive Public Financial Management (GRPFM) framework, which, as its name suggest, is aimed at assessing if the PFM practices of a country is adhering to the standards of gender responsive budgeting.

The framework has nine indicators, as follows-

1. Gender impact analysis of budget policy proposals

2. Gender responsive public investment management

3. Gender responsive budget circular

4. Gender responsive budget proposal documentation

5. Sex-disaggregated performance information for service delivery

6. Tracking budget expenditure for gender equality

7. Gender responsive reporting

8. Evaluation of gender impacts of service delivery

9. Legislative scrutiny of gender impacts of the budget

These indicators are further divided into 12 dimensions, and similar to PEFA, PFM framework, uses a quantitative scale.

As pilot for the framework, initially PFM practices in eight countries have been assessed on their gender responsiveness, namely — Antigua and Barbuda, Fiji, Haiti, Indonesia, St. Lucia, Ukraine, Tonga, and Norway. The average score for all nine indicators came between one and two, out of maximum 4. The low scores do point out to the unsatisfactory situation related to gender budgeting, though the small number of countries doesn’t allow global generalisation. Also, this being the first such assessment, it is difficult to make comments about historical progress. Nonetheless, development of a separate assessment for gender responsiveness of PFM practices is another important milestone in the field of public finance management.

Concluding Remarks

Given the impact of the government’s policies on our daily lives, evaluating them is crucial. The development of PEFA framework is an important development in this field. The advantage of PFM framework lies in the fact that as opposed to being unidimensional, it takes insights from multiple fields, including economics, political science, accounting, public administration, etc. These diverse insights make the PFM framework wholesome. The introduction of Gender Responsive PFM framework is another welcome development in this area.

The reports based on these frameworks provide useful insights for the policy makers to make improvements in their workings. These reports should also be used by citizens to get a better understanding of how the government is performing on its functions, and demand accountability wherever the performance is not up to the standards.

The author works with Centre for Budget and Governance Accountability (CBGA), New Delhi. The views expressed are of the author, and do not necessarily reflect the position of CBGA. You can reach Suraj Jaiswal at suraj@cbgaindia.org.

Gender Dimension in the PEFA Framework — A much desired PFM tool! was originally published in Open Budgets India on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Budget transparency and public participation in various stages of a budget cycle at all levels of government has been recognised as an integral part of a healthy public financial management (PFM) system. Timely availability of reliable and relevant budget data in the public domain, for different tiers of government, provides the assessment of government’s financial position. It also encourages public participation in budgets and public policies. For this reason, transparency has been referred to as a ‘means to strengthening governance’.

A significant surge in the use of Information and Communications Technology (ICT) in governance (termed as ‘e-governance’) started in India with the launch of NICNET in 1987 — the national satellite-based computer network. In 2006, the National e-Governance Plan (NeGP) was formulated by the Department of Electronics and Information Technology (DeitY) and Department of Administrative Reforms and Public Grievances (DARPG). Since then, there was no looking back, and the Government of India’s progress in in this sphere is evident from the numerous government portals and websites.

Notable e-governance initiatives by State finance departments

Meanwhile, the state governments have also covered a lot of ground in e-governance. All the states and UTs are publishing most of their annual budget documents on their respective finance department websites/portals. However, issues pertaining to timely availability, open access, comprehensiveness, and usefulness of these documents need to be resolved. Notably, all the states and UTs are not at the same scale when we measure the score of fiscal transparency, especially when it comes to the timely availability of relevant budget information in public domain.

In recent years, many states have either launched or upgraded their PFM portals, scheme MISs, treasury portals and have attempted to provide relevant documents to facilitate policy decisions and disbursement of funds. Over the years, the fiscal reform measures and innovation on technology integration have led to improvements in these areas. Some such measures are evident through initiatives like KUBER: Integrated Finance Management System, Jharkhand, Koshvani Web: A Gateway to Finance Activities in the State of Uttar Pradesh, Himkosh — Integrated Financial Management Information System, Himachal Pradesh, e-Kosh online, Chhattisgarh etc. Each one of these measures has its own pros and cons. Nevertheless, these initiatives certainly help in strengthening fiscal transparency and accountable governance.

The Government of Karnataka (GoK) has launched Avalokana software to review the progress of various development programmes undertaken by the state government. This piece looks into the kind of fiscal information provided and the level of disaggregation of such information available in the software.

An Overview of Avalokana Software: Hits, misses and way forward

Launched on 20th January 2021, the Avalokana software has been developed by the Department of Planning, Programme Monitoring and Statistics, GoK with the support of Centre of Smart Governance, GoK. Avalokana is supposed to provide a progress review of the Karnataka Development Programmes (KDP) and help the GoK in deciding the release of funds based on the actual expenditure reported by various spending departments/agencies. It provides access to the data on the funds allocated, funds released and expenditure incurred on 1,800 programmes and schemes.

Avalokana presents visualisations indicating the extent of utilisation for the overall budget of the State, development programmes and disaggregated budget allocation and spending under Scheduled Caste Sub Plan (SCSP), Tribal Sub Plan (TSP), Gender Budget, Centrally Sponsored Schemes (CSS) etc. It also provides the progress report of the Special Development Plans (SDP), Externally Aided Projects (EAP) and initiatives like physical target and performance on meeting Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

Concerning accessibility quotient of the software, it presents information in English and Kannada, which is considered a good practice, and would definitely help in increasing its uptake. It is also encouraging to see that most of the documents and datasets presented in the software are downloadable; it provides a gamut of options in which these can be downloaded viz. PDF, Word, Excel, Comma — Separated Values (CSV), PowerPoint, MHTML, Data Feed etc. What is noteworthy here is the fact that some of these formats like Excel and CSV are machine-readable and hence meet the requirements laid down by National Data Sharing and Accessibility Policy (NDSAP) formulated by the Department of Science and Technology, Government of India. It would be even more helpful if the software is disabled friendly by adding accessibility features like screen-reader, option to increase or decrease the font size, option of various colour schemes, along with other compatibility features.

Timely availability of data, and its completeness and comprehensiveness are the other important aspects of the software. Information furnished on Avalokana for various fiscal and non-fiscal indicators is updated on monthly basis, which is a good step towards enhancing fiscal transparency. However, the data pertaining to most of the fiscal and non- fiscal indicators are limited to one financial year (i.e. for the financial year 2020–21) which constraints its comprehensibility. Nonetheless, the software provides the progress review of various KDPs as well as progress of work towards SDGs not only at the State level but also at the level of districts and talukas (also referred as blocks). One of the main sections of the software is reports and datasets related to KDPs. It provides department-wise overall KDP performance for various administrative departments both at the level of State as well as districts. It provides data to evaluate the performance of the department by providing the extent of funds utilised by the respective department (i.e. expenditure made against the allocations). Similarly, budget data has been made available for assessing how different departments are performing in regards to SDP, EAP, SCSP, TSP and Gender budget.

The software provides information pertaining to the physical and financial performance of all the 30 districts in Karnataka. It takes a deep dive into the talukas, and provides fiscal information for more than 200 talukas in the State. Taluka-wise disaggregated fiscal information corresponding to all the relevant departments, monthly as well as cumulative allocation and expenditure data is certainly a step much desired in facilitating public participation. It also ensures greater degree of fiscal transparency and accountability.

Similarly, the section on SDGs evaluates the physical achievements of various departments against the targets. The software provides an overall picture of different indicators and components under various departments and their linkage to SDG framework. It then evaluates the physical performance of these indicators by comparing physical achievement with target. However, this section has been partially populated with the columns indicating achievement still being empty. What is missing on the SDG section of the software is the review of the financial progress. It would make it much more meaningful if the users could get an overview of the financial progress. i.e. the amount of funds allocated and expenditure incurred by each district and taluka to meet the corresponding physical targets in respect to SDGs in the State.

The software also has an option to generate Member of Legislative Assembly (MLA) constituency-wise performance report, evaluating the financial achievement (expenditure) vis a vis target (allocation), for more than 200 MLA constituencies in the State. Department-wise performance on various fiscal indicators, such as budget allocation, release, financial target and achievement is provided on a monthly basis and presented through MLA constituencies. This indeed is a remarkable feature as far as the availability of disaggregated budget and expenditure data in the public domain is concerned. This is the first State in the country to provide fiscal information disaggregated at MLA constituency level.

In terms of availability of time series data, the software certainly needs improvement. There are certain other changes also that need to be made to make the software more relevant to the present context. If the software populates relevant fiscal indicators at least for the last 5 years, it would be helpful in trend analysis of the progress on these indicators. Real time availability of relevant data should be considered in order to facilitate effective implementation of development policies. This would not only enhance the relevance of the software but would also help the state in assessing performance of the administrative departments over a period of time.

Another important parameter is the user-friendliness of the software. It is observed that the software is easy to navigate with only necessary and relevant sections. It definitely provides an opportunity to the users to review the performance of the State, its districts and even talukas. Some improvements like providing glossary with different sections, user guide/manual, site map etc. can help in enriching the user experience. One important section that can add a lot of value to the rich disaggregated data available here is, providing graphical representation/visualisations of different indicators and datasets.

Conclusion

Reforms in public financial management system at the levels of districts and below is an evolving process in India. Initiatives like Avalokana software are certainly a step ahead in building confidence of the public on how, when and where government is spending their hard earned money. The software is indeed providing disaggregated data which is helpful in improving the fiscal transparency score of the state. It will strengthen people’s confidence in the system and facilitate the availability of fiscal data at the level of districts and below. Further, the maiden attempt by the state in providing disaggregated fiscal data at MLA constituency and taluka level is worthy of acknowledgement and replication.

Avalokana is an exemplar for other states. It reflects positively on the confidence of the administration to make available governance related data in the public domain in order to ensure greater public engagement in the fiscal governance discourse at the level of districts and below. We can certainly make impressive strides in fiscal transparency and public participation in the domain of fiscal policy if such initiatives are initiated by many more state governments.

Authors work with Centre for Budget and Governance Accountability (CBGA), New Delhi. Views expressed are of the authors, and do not necessarily reflect the position of CBGA. You can reach them at shuchita@cbgaindia.org and nilachala@cbgaindia.org.

Avalokana: An Initiative towards Enhancing Fiscal Transparency and Accountability was originally published in Open Budgets India on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Story till now.

CivicDataLab in collaboration with Center for Budget and Governance Accountability (CBGA) during the last 2 years has engaged with the question on the flow of money in the fiscal data ecosystem across different tiers of Government such as Union, State, districts, etc. This resulted in developing analytical dashboards like the Union Budget Explorer and the Assam Budget Board. However, to understand the fiscal flow of a state one should not stop at state level but also analyse district wise spending and receipts data. This helps to understand how each district is raising their revenues and spending the allocated funds. By exploring the district wise fiscal data, one can answer some parts of queries such as “how much was spent on primary school building every week in the selected districts or across the state”. The other parts bypass the treasuries and go straight to the implementing societies at the district level. From our analytics about 85% of the funds seem to flow through this meaning around 13–15% flow through our sources (like societies and the pfms).We created a prototype tool to explore spending patterns in two districts of Balasore in Odisha and Krishna in Andhra Pradesh. These tools presented open budget data in a comprehensive and easy to understand form using various interactive visualisations. This can be easily curated using open data on district treasuries that gets updated on a daily basis on Governmental IFMIS — Integrated Financial Management Information System for select states (Himkosh).

Analysing this data has the potential to build stronger research as well as advocacy routes for the civil society organisations in their interactions with the concerned government authorities. Simplifying such complicated fiscal information at the sub-state level can potentially not only increase transparency but also bring about more public awareness and participation in budgetary process

Therefore in collaboration with Tech4Dev and CBGA we have developed the Himachal Pradesh Fiscal Data Explorer .

Why was Himachal Pradesh selected as our first target state?

Himachal Pradesh finance department uploads district treasury data on a daily basis which makes data available at the Drawing And Disbursing Officer (DDO) level daily. Of all the state spending data we have observed, Himachal Pradesh had the most dis-aggregated data and therefore we thought we would start with it

Why do we need a fiscal data explorer?

What is Fiscal Data Explorer?

Fiscal Data Explorer is a unique tool where citizens can explore both budgets and spending data of Himachal Pradesh in an easy to comprehend and simple to use manner.

Sections in the tool:

Now lets see how we can explore some insights using the different sections of the tool:

Expenditure Summary

This section provides an overview of the expenditure incurred under the different budget heads for the Government of Himachal Pradesh across various fiscal years.

District-Wise Expenditure

This section provides an aggregate account of all expenditure incurred by the Government of Himachal Pradesh across different years, districts, district treasuries and by different Drawing and Disbursing Officers(DDOs).

Similarly, one can explore following sections:

Receipts:

• State wise Receipts: This section provides a detailed account of all revenue accrued to the Government of Himachal Pradesh under different heads of accounts.
• District-Wise Receipts: This section provides an aggregate account of all receipts accrued to the Government of Himachal Pradesh as well as detailed accounts of revenue across time, districts, treasuries and DDOs.

Schemes: This section provides detailed accounts of expenditure on select centrally sponsored schemes and state schemes.

COVID-19

In the light of the pandemic, when it is difficult for us to keep track of government spending since there is no code to indicate COVID-19 spending. We looked at press releases, govt orders and the disaster management authority to get details on govt spending. This section is in alpha version, we are planning to add more visualisations to make it more comprehensive. It will also help to advocate with Government departments and bring more transparency which is much required at this time.

Additional features:

Some of the additional features of this tool are:

• Glossary to understand all the budgetary data related jargons used across this tool.
• Every section has “more info” text where one can explore what that section is all about.
• The filters have search functionality and help text to filter the departments and heads of interest
• We also have a basic wiki in place where you can read more about our methodology used to develop the tool
• The tables in all the sections are searchable, sortable and downloadable in machine readable format

How did we curate data?

One of the sections of Himkosh-IFMIS , eKosh disseminates fiscal information related to different stakeholders such as the Finance Department, HODs, DDOs, employees, AG, Pensioners etc. on a daily basis.

eKosh has data on district-wise spending and receipts given in different formats and abstraction levels, to get the relevant data for our tool we followed following steps:

• Thorough research on all the data-set available in eKosh
• Curating the ones which have the maximum amount of information available for district-wise spending and receipts data, this included parsing data from HTML format to machine readable format.
• Collection of all the metadata present across ekosh for example descriptions of various head of accounts through which fiscal data flows, to map it with district-wise spending and receipts data, this helped us make the data much more consumable and self explanatory.
• We wrote scripts to clean the collected data and bring it to format which is easy to understand and store.
• After manipulating the data we validated the prepared data in both manual and automated manner
• Validation was followed by storing the data in flat table formats which are easy to query
• As the data on eKosh gets updated on daily basis, we used different open-source libraries and tools to automate the process of data curation, cleaning and storing without any manual interaction
• To serve the data to the interactive visualisations, we have developed open APIs to fetch data from tables in the format that is required by the visualisations.

To ensure the integrity of the data displayed using visualisations we followed following methodology:

• We conducted spot checks of the data in all the different sections across the years for different DDO’s (at least two DDOs in each district) to check if the data was consistent between the website and the explorer.

To read more about it please visit here

While designing the tool, we kept in mind our target users and we grouped them into:

(a) Budget Educated Group: People working regularly with budgetary data like state finance department(s), budget researchers, economists, academicians, policy makers and more.

(b) Budget Curious Group: People keen to explore budgetary data but may need some help navigating through it, like civil society organisations, MSMEs, media and more.

Road Ahead..

Going ahead we will be adding following sections in the tool:

1) Dynamic Dashboard: The dashboard will be dynamic. The visualisations will be updated on a fortnightly basis with recent data without any manual interaction.

2) Sector specific pages : Comprehensive sector specific pages which will give detailed information on how the sector is performing in terms of revenue raised and spending the allocated funds across districts and years.

3) COVID-19 Spending Tracker: A tracker to analyse how Himachal Pradesh government is performing in terms of funds utilisation in the times of pandemic, this will help us in advocacy efforts and also government to take more informed decisions.

4) Procurement Tracker: A tracker to track all the Health and COVID-19 related tenders released by the Government.

5) Start Discourse channel to have active discussions with the community

6) The dashboard can be used as a potential tool to showcase the possibilities of having access to granular and easy to comprehend fiscal information. At the same time, this can be used as an advocacy mechanism to pursue state governments in opening up their budgets and spending information.

Resources:

Blogs

• Tracking Flow of Public Funds through Open Data
• Roadmap for co-creating the Fiscal Data Explorer
• Selecting schemes and sectors for Himachal Fiscal Data Explorer: Process and Criteria

About the Author

Shreya Agrawal is a data fanatic who loves to scrutinize data as well as answering unanswered questions using visualizations. She will be leading the efforts of co-creating Fiscal Data Explorer and Child Budget Tracker. When she is not busy wrestling with data, she enjoys good movies, food, travel, guitar and Cross Fit.

Introducing the Himachal Pradesh Fiscal Data Explorer was originally published in Open Budgets India on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Subrat Das

Over the last two decades, Central schemes across important sectors like education, health and nutrition, water and sanitation, agriculture and rural development, and social protection for the marginalised sections have been constrained by under-utilisation of available funds. Given the limited fiscal space available to the government and competing demands for public resources from a large number of sectors, India cannot afford constrained utilisation of the available budgetary resources in any sector. In order to monitor the performance of schemes at the district level, the District Development Coordination and Monitoring Committee (DISHA Committee) was instituted in August 2016. Despite this, problems in resource absorption in the social sector schemes have not been addressed comprehensively and dearth of evidence from the ground have impeded effective reforms.

In this context, we need to recognize that the process of implementation of social sector schemes can be broadly divided into two stages: the first is that of utilisation of fund outlays (i.e. budget allocations) for delivering outputs and services, while the second stage pertains to the use (or uptake) of publicly delivered outputs and services that over a period of time impacts the outcome indicators. It can be argued that the first stage tends to get constrained mainly by supply-side bottlenecks (like, delays and uncertainty in fund flow up to the service delivery level, under-utilisation of funds available for schemes, and poor quality of utilisation etc.), while the second stage gets affected both by supply-side factors (like, limited coverage, poor quality of outputs and services delivered) and demand-side factors (such as, need for changes in social behaviour, gaps in public awareness about the programmes, and so on). Addressing the supply-side bottlenecks alone will not suffice as long as there are challenges on the demand-side, but demand-side interventions alone will not suffice either.

A series of knowledge products brought out recently by the Centre for Budget and Governance Accountability (CBGA) and the Tata Trusts, called the Budget Trails, unpacks a host of common supply-side bottlenecks constraining the process of utilisation of budgets in the social sector programmes. CBGA and Tata Trusts carried out a two-year project focusing on the extent and quality of fund utilisation in ten Central schemes in 2017–18 and 2018–19, in five districts across four States (viz. Andhra Pradesh, Jharkhand, Maharashtra and Odisha), with the support of the District Administration in each of the selected districts. It would be worthwhile to take note of the insights and policy takeaways emerging from this comprehensive exercise, if we are serious about the budget outlays ultimately resulting in the development outcomes we are aspiring for.

The narrative that large proportions of allocated funds remain unutilised in the social sector schemes needs to be amended now; districts have shown considerable improvement in resource absorption capacity in most of the Central schemes compared to what is reported in the literature for earlier years. In schemes like SSA, ICDS, MGNREGS, NSAP, SBM-Grameen and NRDWP, the districts studied have reported impressive levels of utilisation of the funds available; with over 90 per cent fund utilisation reported for the financial years 2017–18 and 2018–19. There seems to be scope for more improvement in the extent of fund utilisation in schemes like NHM and MDM though. However, the quality of utilisation of funds (in terms of how even is the pattern of utilisation across blocks within a district, across different components of a scheme, and the distribution of total expenditure across the four quarters of a financial year) is not very satisfactory yet. The latter aspect needs a lot more attention in most of the social sector schemes.

Complex fund flow mechanisms need reforms; funds in some of the Central schemes in social sectors bypassing the District Treasury makes comprehensive assessment of the quantum of fund flow and utilisation in a district very difficult. Moreover, there doesn’t seem to be any advantage in the Autonomous Societies route of fund flow over the District Treasury route in terms of the pace of fund flow and utilisation in the schemes. Hence, there is a need for streamlining the fund flow mechanisms for expediting fund utilisation. District authorities should address the problems arising from delay in fund flow in some of the schemes by creating pools of revolving funds to enable short-term fungibility of resources across schemes. Too many checks and balances have resulted in constraining the implementation process in several social sector schemes — Union ministries and State Government departments need to provide more flexibility in scheme guidelines and norms (e.g. in selection of beneficiaries by district level implementing authorities); and state finance departments should enhance the delegation of financial powers to spending departments. There is also a need for addressing the gaps in availability of staff for implementation of programmes and their capacity (with regard to the changing guidelines in schemes, using technology etc.).

It would be worthwhile to note here that the limitations in resource absorption in the social sectors, at least to some extent, have resulted from the shortage of resources in those sectors (for recruitment of staff, in particular and their training) in the past. Hence, we need to recognize that the problems of under-funding and under-utilisation are interrelated. Moreover, there is an urgent need for improving significantly the budget and expenditure information architecture at the district level to improve transparency and accountability in the social sectors.

About the authors

Subrat works with Centre for Budget and Governance Accountability; views expressed here are personal.

How well are Budget 2020–21 allocations going to be utilised? was originally published in Open Budgets India on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.