Chintan Shibir: At eighth thought retreat, Cameron to hold forth on governance — on screen

“TED talks by David Cameron on The Next Generation of Governance, Role of Public and Private Partnership by economist Mariana Mazzucato and Why Nations Fail by economist James Robinson will be screened,’’ said General Administration Department secretary Dhananjay Dwivedi. TED, a US-based non-profit organisation, offers speeches by the world leaders through Information Technology. The first Chintan Shibir of the Anandiben Patel government, however, will see the bottom-up approach as the agenda and ideas to be discussed will be those filtered from the taluka and district-level Chintan Shibirs that were held around Gatisheel Gujarat, an administrative agenda set with specific targets by the Patel government.

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“The objective of a toilet at every house hold under Swachhata Abhiyan and M-Governance will also dominate about the list of new topics to be discussed,” said a top level official. The government is in the process to offer as many as 200 services through mobile applications under M-Governance. Earlier, at both the taluka and district levels, the participants- collector, district development officers, taluka development officers, talatis — on the first day of two day shibirs — have held meetings with village panchayat representatives and local residents to know and understand local problems. In another first, the teams have also visited local schools, hospitals, temples, other organisations in the area to get the ground level feel before they set for brainstorming on the next day.

Though each and every taluka and district have their different set of issues, but at every level the government had made it mandatory to take stock of pressing issues like malnutrition, school dropout ratio after class IX, toilets and cleanliness in schools, Swachhata Abhiyaan, on starting smart schools in villages, status of drip irrigation and strengthening of women run milk cooperatives.

Besides, all the talukas and districts were asked to prepare implementation plans for ongoing flagship programmes like Kanya Kelavani, midday meal, Chiranjeevi Yojana, civil supply, among others. With an aim to make governance less formal, bring officials closer, ease hierarchy and facilitate the flow of free ideas in natural set up, while doing recreational activities like yoga, the first Chintan Shibir by the Modi government was held at Kevadia Colony, in the backdrop of Sardar Sarovar Dam, in 2003. Also called annual thought camp, where the Modi government’s most popular ideas have believed to appeared, it was held regularly till 2011. The back-to-back important elections for Modi, including third elections as CM in December 2012 and Lok Sabha elections as PM candidate in 2014, saw the Chintan Shibir taking a backseat.