Introduction
Programme Outcome and Response Monitoring Division

The Hon'ble Prime Minister has on several occasions emphasised the need for monitoring physical outcomes of development programmes to ensure that the intended benefits of development programmes are delivered directly to the target beneficiaries. The Hon. Finance Minister in his Budget Speech (para 100) has also stressed on the importance of the outcome of major programmes. While referring to outlays versus outcomes the Hon. Finance Minister stated "At the same time, I must caution that outlays do not necessarily mean outcomes. The people of the country are concerned with outcomes. The Hon.Prime Minister has repeatedly emphasized the need to improve the quality of implementation and enhance the efficiency and accountability of the delivery mechanism . During the course of the year, together with the Planning Commission, we shall put in place a mechanism to measure that development outcomes of all major programmes. We shall also ensure that programmes and schemes are not allowed to continue indefinitely from one plan period to the next without an independent and in-depth evaluation. Civil society should also engage government in a healthy debate on the efficiency of the delivery mechanism." Accordingly, a Programme Outcome and Response Monitoring Division (PO&RM Division) has been set up in the Planning Commission.

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Programme Outcome & Response Monitoring Division

A Programme Outcome and Response Monitoring Division (PO&RM Division) has been set up in the Planning Commission to measure the physical outcomes of major programmes /schemes viz.

Some of these programmes have been operational for some time, while others are about to be launched. PO&RM Division will put in place a system to convert financial outlays of various developmental programmes into physical outcomes with targets in respect of various predefined outcome parameters.

The monitoring system of most departments of Government of India and State governments are currently attuned to quarterly expenditure targets. In fact the entire monitoring is based on financial targets. Correspondingly, physical targets are not being set, upfront, and the parameters for measuring physical performance and their time lines are not being reflected in the Quarterly Progress Review (QPR) either quantitatively or qualitatively.

The Programme Outcome & Response Monitoring Division will ensure the following:

1. Physical outcomes are pre determined in terms of measurable pre-defined parameters corresponding to the programme outlays.
2. Given the outcome parameters the necessary data elements would be identified in parallel.
3. Deficiencies in the existing system of data capture at the field level would then be identified and steps taken to rectify these deficiencies by mobilizing human resources of Ministries of Government of India; national or state level social sciences research institutes; domain knowledge experts/consultants; and non-government social service sector or voluntary sector agencies with established track-record in the field.
4. The Programme Outcome & Response Monitoring Division will also collect, collate and analyse the related relevant data and prepare critical backgrounders for programme wise outcome monitoring.

In addition to the programmes listed above, other programmes may also be brought under the PO&RM Division.

The PO&RM Division will also put together Physical Outcome related inputs received from Central Ministries by PMO or Planning Commission in the form of a periodic consolidated reports.

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List of officers of PO&RM Division

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Core Group for an overview of the Outcome Monitoring in India

A Core Group on Overview of Outcome Monitoring in India has been set up with the following Experts and Officers of the Planning Commission and the Ministry of Finance as its Members:

Terms of Reference of the Core Group will include :-

• Substantive, Methodological and Technical inputs on a monthly or bimonthly basis;
• Experiential, Eliciting lessons learnt ( and success stories) for policy advocacy and corrective actions;

The Core Group may co-opt other Experts also as may be suggested and necessary from time to time. Concerned Principal Advisers and Advisers of the Planning Commission and Representatives from various concerned Ministries may be invited whenever required on a case to case basis at specific meetings. The Core Group may also invite NGOs, PVOs and other non-officials for specific inputs on a case to case basis.

The initial term of the Core Group will be for a period of six months from the date of its first meeting.

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Summary Record of the first meeting of the core group constituted
for the Programme Outcome and Response Monitoring (PO&RM) Division held
under the Chairmanship of Hon'ble Deputy Chairman (DCH), Planning Commission on 17-05-2005 at 11-00 A.M. at Yojana Bhavan.

The first meeting of the core group constituted for the Programme Outcome and Response Monitoring (PO&RM) Division was held under the Chairmanship of Hon'ble Deputy Chairman (DCH), Planning Commission on 17-05-2005 at 11-00 A.M. at Yojana Bhavan. A list of participants at the meeting is given at Annexure.

While welcoming Hon'ble DCH, Planning Commission, Member Secretary, Planning Commission, Members of the Core Group, Principal Advisers and Advisers (Planning Commission), Head PO&RM Division (Member Convener of the Core Group), highlighted the outputs of the Division since its establishment. These included :

• Establishment of a Division and acquiring core staff support,
• Mandate & scope of work as spelled out in the office order dated 21.04.2005,
• Setting up a Core Group to advise the Division Consisting of Experts drawn from Ministry of Finance, Planning Commission, Universities, Research Institutes, etc.
• Consolidation and analysis of responses received from the concerned Ministries and PMO.

The need for Program Outcome and Response Monitoring was outlined by Head PO&RM as follows: Globalization exerts pressure on governments for greater responsiveness and performance by internal / external stakeholders for good governance, accountability, transparency, greater development effectiveness and delivery of tangible results. The important questions are, where are we (monitoring) and, why are not targets often met / outcomes not emerging as required (Evaluation). She stated that, monitoring and evaluation (M&E) is a powerful public management tool in the way governments achieve results, moving away from traditional implementation based monitoring approaches to results based approaches. The objective of outcome monitoring in this context is basically to provide services through Governments to ultimately benefit the poor.

Apart from types of Outcome monitoring methodologies, the choices / priorities to be considered by the core group could be as follows:

1. Whole of Govt. approach
2. Conclave approach
3. Mixed approach

In these approaches too, both top down (whole departments / Ministries) or scheme wise (bottom up ) monitoring was possible.

Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) have been the first global initiatives to adopt a results based approach to poverty reduction and improvement in living status (8 goals), she concluded.

Following the brief outline given by the Head (PO&RM), the meeting was addressed by Hon'ble DCH, Planning Commission.

In his opening remarks, Hon. DCH highlighted the crucial role of the private sector in the period of globalization. He emphasized the need to have a monitoring mechanism in place so that funds disbursed for development programmes would yield meaningful results. He expressed concern over the present system of monitoring where the emphasis seemed heavily on financial monitoring, top heavy and report generating. DCH reiterated the Government's commitment to improve the program design and delivery systems. He also emphasized the need to have mechanisms to monitor funds released and outcomes generated. He suggested that one month should be spent to analyze (i) what is being monitored and (2) whether proper monitoring systems for physical outcomes are in place.

He further elaborated that enhancing resources in any of the listed schemes for outcome monitoring as in the mandate of the PO&RM division did not seem a very difficult proposition. But the quality and performance would have to be commensurate with the expenditure. However, this would mean that resources would have to be diverted from other less effective programmes towards these. Nonetheless, there is general cynicism that by just monitoring expenditure, interest or value would not automatically accrue. It also remained unclear if released amounts for programmes were expended effectively as seen in the audited accounts. It would, therefore, be useful not to setup another top heavy paper generating mechanism, but ideally should take up some of the methodological issues which have been highlighted by the Head, PO&RM. This would be a worthwhile contribution in the development of an independent monitoring mechanism. Similarly, he also pointed out that piloting and sampling would also provide a rigour to the monitoring of outcomes on a systematic basis which was often unavailable. Anecdotal experiences while being interesting, definitely needed to be supported by systematic and vigorous monitoring of programme interventions at the grassroots.

Regarding Hon'ble Finance Minister's statement on Outlays and Outcomes, DCH pointed out that should lead to strategic choices that the core group should make such as, if the reporting system was expenditure or outcome based and/ or whether it is being monitored on a quarterly basis

DCH also pointed out the need for

1. Strengthening and reviewing monitoring systems on a regular basis ;
2. Partly the exercise should be viewed as a critical input for the Eleventh plan Process, which would start soon.

While highlighting the importance of IT in monitoring, Member Secretary, Planning Commission suggested that disaggregated district level data could be aggregated and similarly block level data could also be compiled. Member-Secretary requested Adviser (C&I), Planning Commission to initiate this process after physical indicators/parameters had been identified in consultation with the concerned Ministries/Departments which would enable PO&RM to assess the areas of deficiency in availability of data including gaps. This exercise could be collaborative in nature while outsourcing some of the tasks to outside agencies. He further explained that this exercise would lead to a repository of data both at the national and state level which in turn would enable the concerned Ministries/Departments to gauge the real status of implementation of this programmes.

Prof. Ravi Srivastava (JNU) raised a question on the manner of linking physical indicators with the outcomes. He further suggested that the redesign of systems should provide quality data through random checking for feedback on data accuracy.

Shri Sridharan, Joint Secretary (SP&A), Planning Commission suggested that human development indices could be used as a bench mark or MDGs for measuring outcome indicators. He also suggested that State Governments should be involved in identification of the real outcome indicators for building ownership in the programs (reality check). Apart from these, demarcation of Plan / Non-Plan, Centre and States have to be merged so as to capture the holistic reality of outcomes.

Dr. N.C. Saxena said that often mere indicators are not enough to cause concern amongst critical policy makers as these may even induce requests for higher allocations to assuage the problem. It is the highlight of failure of specific schemes that actually caused serious concerns to policy makers. He suggested that the Deputy Chairman, Planning Commission send a communication to state Chief Ministers to appoint a nodal officer at the state level.

Prof. Ravi Srivastava highlighted three dimensions of schemes viz. Track outcome, broad policy frame, outlay /outcome. Individual schemes have to be critically appraised with policy inferences from the design stage so that the outcomes expected of and also the time frame for the monitoring (whether it is at the mid stream or at the end) could be defined.

Recommendations

The Core Group decided the following based on the deliberations and inputs recorded at the said meeting. The Core Group felt that though the monitoring of outlays and outcomes was essential, it also felt very strongly that non scheme based approach i.e. thematic areas such as rural poverty, health, education, water and sanitation, agriculture etc. should be the actual cluster groupings that needed attention. It was suggested that concentration of efforts on 4 food security based programmes such as Mid-day meals, food for work, ICDS and Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan could also be useful. It was also felt that Human development indicators or MDGs should be utilized as a benchmark to decide the broad themes stated above.

The Head (PO&RM Division) drew the group's attention to the important centrally sponsored schemes that were prioritized for assessing outcome and response monitoring as follows:

1. Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan,
2. Mid-day Meals,
3. Food for Work and Employment Guarantee Scheme,
4. Rural Health Mission,
5. Urban Renewal Programme,
6. Integrated Child Development Service (ICDS) (requested for addition by representative of MoF)
7. Bharat Nirman, all six component programmes for rural infrastructure, viz
• Rural Roads,
• Rural Telecom Connectivity,
• Rural Housing,
• Rural Drinking Water,
• Rural Electrification,
• Irrigation .
8. Rural Household Electrification Programme
9. Backward Region Grants Fund

These schemes delineated above accounted for nearly Rs.31,000 crores of the total approximate outlay of around Rs. 40,000 crores, as it was stated.

It was decided by the core group that in the first instance the following schemes would be focused on :

1. Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan,
2. Mid-day Meals,
3. Food for Work and Employment Guarantee Scheme,
4. Integrated Child Development Services (ICDS) (as per MoF's request)
5. Bharat Nirman (Only three component programmes for rural infrastructure could be taken up for analysis i.e. Rural Drinking Water, Rural Electrification, Rural Roads)

The first step in the case of the above programs / schemes was that "problems", could be converted into outcomes and subsequently indicators. These would be discussed in the next meeting of the Core Group to be held in June and finalized for each program listed above. It would also be taken up simultaneously with the concerned Principal Advisers/Advisers by Head, PO&RM Division. Simultaneously, the former could also in turn consult their relevant Ministries so that the consultative process will lead to ownership of outcome indicators for specific schemes that could be worked out as far as possible. DCH indicated that Head PO&RM could be present in these meetings. It was also noted that as the Rural Health Mission and Urban renewal programme had just begun work, they could be taken up at a later stage.

To bring in the ownership at the state level, the value added inputs at the field level reality would be absorbed as well as non plan expenditure outcomes be integrated into the monitoring system in the long run, a nodal officer at the State level should be designated to support the outcome and response monitoring strategy from the Central level. The core group recommended that DCH could kindly write to the concerned Chief Ministers and take up this issue of designation of a nodal officer from each State so that the commitment at the highest level was demonstrated (Preferably Secretary, Planning).

It was also suggested that Separate Committees of Secretaries in the designated Core theme areas such as Education, Health, RD, Agriculture, Water Supply, Sanitation and so forth could be set up to strengthen and support the sectoral process of delivering outcome based outputs. Pr Advisers / Advisers could constitute these sectoral groups for relevant inputs including e-groups, that could be represented by Adviser (SP&A) from the Core Group.

The core group also felt in terms of benchmark data that it would be useful to first develop outcome indicators through PO&RM which could then be fed into the data systems with a consultative process through Principal Advisers / Advisers / relevant Ministries/ Adviser (C&I) and NIC.

While analysing delivery mechanisms at the grassroots, the role of the Panchayats, civil services and NGOs at the cutting edge required analysis to support the above institutional and governance mechanisms so that the outcome of policies/programmes/projects was more effective.

A webpage could also be developed on the Planning Commission's website with a view to posting relevant studies, track outcome monitoring with specific theme areas / programmes / schemes by PO&RM division after due discussion.

It was also suggested that a Participatory monitoring effort on the food for work Program on a pilot basis should be taken up in a few districts to study the outcome by identifying proper indicators and involving civil society participatory networks that exist at the grassroots level. This could be compared to the data generated by the existing Government monitoring system which would help PO&RM perceive the differentials in quality of data for enabling adoption of more vigorous methodologies.

The meeting ended with members promising to send research studies, reports, policy notes on thematic areas to the PO&RM division.

Annexure I: List of participants who attended the meeting - PDF | MS Word

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