Aimed at improving socio-economic outcomes and the quality of public expenditure in Telangana, the Finance and Planning departments have signed an MoU with Centre for Effective Governance of Indian States (CEGIS).
The MoU was signed between K. Ramakrishna Rao, Finance Secretary and Karthik Muralidharan, founder of CEGIS in the presence of Finance Minister, T. Harish Rao and Vice-Chairman of the State Planning Board, B. Vinod Kumar.
The MoU will adopt a four-pronged approach. It will collect regular and independent data on key outcomes and processes across multiple sectors, use the data to improve performance and personnel management, improve the quality of expenditure through strategic budgeting and planning, and for creating evidence-based policy roadmaps for reform in key sectors and tracking the impact of reforms on outcomes.
These measures are an extension of the work done by the government in improving development outcomes and aimed at propelling the State towards the target of a Bangaru Telangana, according to Mr. Vinod Kumar.
Prof. Muralidharan, a professor of Economics at the University of California, San Diego is also a Board member and Global Chair of Education of J-PAL’s education sector, the organisation co-founded by Abhijit Banerjee and Esther Duflo, the two Nobel prize winners in Economics this year.
