Gandhinagar: Union Minister Jitendra Singh said on Thursday that the “Gujarat Governance Model” offers several best practices which can be successfully replicated elsewhere, too.
Speaking at the National Conference on Good Governance here, the minister recalled that many of the governance innovations successfully implemented at the Central level were first introduced in Gujarat under Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s leadership as Chief Minister.
Addressing a pan-India audience of policymakers, senior bureaucrats, and governance experts, Jitendra Singh praised the transformation in governance over the last decade.
“This transformation did not happen overnight. Many of the reforms introduced at the national level were first tested and perfected in Gujarat, and today they are being replicated across the country,” he remarked.
Jitendra Singh underscored the fundamental shift in governance culture under Prime Minister Modi, which has taken policymaking beyond the traditional administrative strongholds of Delhi and into various regions of the country.
He cited the Prime Minister’s directive to decentralise governance by ensuring that major policy discussions, conferences and outreach programmes are held in different parts of the country and not necessarily in Delhi.
He also referred to the evolution of India’s administrative framework, recalling how Sardar Patel envisioned a robust bureaucracy as the ‘steel frame’ of India, a vision that has been further refined through PM Modi-led government’s approach of ‘Maximum Governance, Minimum Government.’
He pointed to landmark reforms, such as the scrapping of nearly 2,000 obsolete laws, the elimination of the requirement for attested documents and the removal of interviews for junior-level government jobs as measures that have streamlined bureaucracy and enhanced transparency.
One of the standout examples of governance innovation, Jitendra Singh noted, was Gujarat’s early implementation of the 24-hour rural electrification scheme in the early 2000s.
“At a time when electricity supply was erratic across the country, Gujarat pioneered uninterrupted rural electrification, a model that was later scaled up at the national level,” he said.
Recounting the scale of transformation, Jitendra Singh spoke about how electricity shortages used to be commonplace in many parts of India.
“There was a time when people clapped when the lights came back on after an outage. Today, power cuts are rare, and uninterrupted electricity is an expectation, not a luxury. This is the scale of governance transformation achieved,” he remarked.
The Minister also outlined India’s progress in digital governance, emphasizing major technological interventions in public administration.
Initiatives such as online RTI applications, digital life certificates for pensioners using facial recognition technology, and AI-driven administrative decision-making have positioned India as a leader in governance innovation.
He stated that the use of emerging technologies will be central to governance in the coming years, making administration more efficient, transparent, and citizen-friendly.
Dr. Jitendra Singh also spoke about the impressive strides made in grievance redressal mechanisms, particularly the CPGRAMS (Centralized Public Grievance Redressal and Monitoring System), which has now become a model for citizen-centric governance worldwide.
The minister highlighted that between 2019 and 2024, India has witnessed a transformative shift in governance, with e-governance streamlining citizen-government interactions and enhancing transparency.
He noted that the widespread adoption of e-Office version 7.0 has enabled paperless administration across Ministries, ensuring efficiency and accountability in governance.
He emphasised that India’s commitment to e-governance has been reinforced through platforms like the National Conference on e-Governance (NCeG), which has fostered collaboration between the Centre and States since 1997.
Jitendra Singh highlighted the success of the fourth Sushasan Saptah – Good Governance Week – held from December 19 to 25, 2024, with over 36,000 camps organised across 700+ districts, resolving nearly 2.89 crore service applications, the campaign demonstrated the government’s commitment to transparency, accountability, and citizen empowerment at every level.
Dr. Jitendra Singh expressed confidence that continued collaboration between the Central and state governments would lead to more impactful reforms, ultimately driving India towards becoming a global model of effective governance.
