Going Beyond Silos For Citizen-Centric Governance And Socioeconomic Development

India wants to aspire to become a developed nation by 2047. Apart from this goal, the country wants to achieve inclusive and sustainable growth to become Viksit Bharat in the 100th year of independence.

To achieve these goals of growth, inclusion and sustainability, effective implementation and good governance are needed to achieve the intended outcomes.

One of the key tasks of public policy is to create structures and institutions which bridge the gap between policy and implementation. This becomes especially critical at the state and local level where institutional capacity constraints may sometimes lead to shortcomings in implementation which can create limitations for even well thought out policy.

To overcome this constraint, the Government of India has spearheaded innovative solutions like the Aspirational Districts and Aspirational Blocks programmes (ADP/ABP) under which districts and blocks are encouraged to catch up with the best performing districts and blocks in their states.

This is accomplished through measuring improvement with respect to key performance indicators covering important themes such as health, nutrition, agriculture, water resources, financial inclusion and skill development. This initiative has played a key role in fostering cooperative and competitive federalism. At the same time, districts have improved on key performance indicators which has contributed to ease of living and an improvement of living standards.

One of the lessons of the ADP/ABP initiatives is that for translating budget outlays to development outcomes, it is often necessary to go beyond a siloed approach. Under conventional administrative arrangements, policy implementations usually occurs through sectoral and departmental silos. Monitoring systems operate independently within sectors, development data remains dispersed across multiple platforms, and opportunities for coordinated action are often limited.

While these mechanisms support programme implementation, they do not provide a dedicated institutional framework for holistic constituency-level development management. Due to a lack of convergence, this can lead to a limited view which can hamper the comprehensive achievement of development outcomes.

A recent initiative of the Andhra Pradesh government merits attention in this context. This initiative harnesses elected representatives, in this case Members of Legislative Assembly (MLAs), as key agents of public policy and equips them with the institutional wherewithal to monitor key development outcomes of their constituency.

The Government of Andhra Pradesh has established Swarna Constituency Vision Action Plan Units (SCVAPUs) as a pioneering constituency-level governance framework to accelerate the implementation of their 2047 vision of a ‘Swarna Andhra’. Conceived as the bridge between vision and execution, SCVAPUs serve as the constituency-level institutional mechanism for translating the broader development objectives of the State into measurable outcomes.

They provide elected representatives and administrations with dedicated support for development planning, performance monitoring, citizen engagement, stakeholder convergence, and evidence-based decision-making across all 175 Assembly Constituencies and 688 Mandals of Andhra Pradesh.

Each SCVAPU functions under the leadership of the MLA and draws upon a multidisciplinary team consisting of a Constituency Special Officer, a Young Professional, a Knowledge Partner, and sector-specific Vision Staff. This team extends sustained support across the full cycle of constituency development — from the preparation and execution of Constituency Vision Action Plans to the tracking of Key Performance Indicators (KPIs), the promotion of inter-departmental convergence, the advancement of flagship programmes and the deepening of citizen-centric governance.

The institutional framework rests on a digital foundation comprising the AP Constituency Portal and the Constituency Vision Monitoring System (CVMS). These platforms provide real-time access to development data, constituency-level dashboards, planning documents, performance metrics, and instruments of public communication, thereby reinforcing transparency, accountability, and evidence-based decision-making.

The early experience of constituencies such as Nidadavole illustrates the promise of this model: SCVAPUs have shown their capacity to forge partnerships, strengthen the monitoring of development outcomes, promote livelihoods, and enable the coordinated delivery of development priorities on the ground.

SCVAPUs are conceived not merely as data-gathering arrangements but as nodes of development intelligence at the constituency level. Their work spans the full analytical chain, from the systematic assembly of information across sectors, its interpretation, and its conversion into insight.

By keeping a continuous watch on socio-economic conditions, the progress of infrastructure, the quality of service delivery, patterns of local economic activity and the implementation of government programmes, each unit builds a living evidence base for its constituency.

The significance of this lies in the shift it represents. Raw information, which by itself carries limited operational value, is refined into actionable insight that can guide action. Administrators and elected representatives are thereby better placed to detect problems as they emerge rather than after they harden, to read performance trends over time, and to sequence and prioritise interventions with greater precision.

A defining feature of the SCVAPU model is the manner in which it embeds the citizen's voice within the formal machinery of planning and review. Rather than treating public feedback as incidental, the units draw it in as a structured input: grievances registered through the Public Grievance Redressal System (PGRS), findings from public perception monitoring, observations from field verification, and the insights gathered through stakeholder consultations, surveys and routine community interaction are all subjected to regular review and analysis.

The effect is to close the distance between the governed and the governing. Development plans and administrative decisions come to reflect the lived experience of citizens encompassing the difficulties they encounter in accessing services and the priorities they articulate for their localities.

In institutionalising this feedback loop, SCVAPUs make governance more transparent in its workings, more accountable for its outcomes, more responsive to felt needs, and, over time, more deserving of public trust.

Thus, various wings of the government are placed in structured, continuous dialogue around a shared evidence base of plans and performance indicators.

In doing so, this model creates a pro-development institutional structure, while preserving the accountability of each wing within its own sphere.

This creates a citizen-centric system whereby the development needs and aspirations of the citizens are placed front and centre of governance, while at the same time bridging the gap between policy and implementation. Adoption of these types of citizen centric system are needed in different states for better governance and achieving the intended goals of Viksit Bharat by 2047.

(The writer is Chairman, Economic Advisory Council to the Prime Minister)

(DISCLAIMER: The facts and opinions expressed in this article are those of the writer and do not reflect the views of ETV Bharat.)