Kerala govt announces five major governance reforms

The Kerala Cabinet approved five governance reforms to enhance transparency, digitise administration and reduce financial leakages. Measures include asset tracking through SAMPATH, GIS-based project monitoring, institutional review, outdated law assessment and process simplification for improved citizen and business services

Thiruvananthapuram: The Kerala Cabinet on Wednesday approved five major governance reforms aimed at strengthening public administration, improving transparency and plugging leakages that have resulted in significant losses to the state exchequer over the years.

Announcing the decisions at a press conference after chairing the Cabinet meeting, Chief Minister V D Satheesan said the reforms would create a comprehensive digital infrastructure for governance and project monitoring.

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The first initiative is the creation of a Special Asset Management Platform for Administration, Tracking and Harmonisation (SAMPATH), a centralised digital platform that will maintain details of all government-owned assets, including land, buildings, heritage structures, roads, dams, bridges, vehicles and machinery.

The second reform is the development of PlanSpace 2.0, a GIS-enabled project registry that will digitally track all capital projects approved by various government departments.

The platform will integrate geotagging and map every project with details such as location, implementing agency, approving authority, funding source and construction stage, he said.

While the existing PlanSpace platform monitors the physical and financial progress of nearly 2,000 plan projects, the upgraded version will incorporate Geographic Information System mapping to improve project monitoring.

As the third measure, the government will prepare a comprehensive registry of all government institutions, the chief minister said.

Satheesan said the exercise will cover 591 institutions under the state government, which together account for an annual salary expenditure of around Rs 19,000 crore.

The review will identify institutions with overlapping functions and facilitate their integration to improve administrative efficiency, he said. The government will also review those which have outlived their purpose.

The fourth reform involves a comprehensive review of obsolete, redundant and conflicting laws and statutory provisions.

The chief minister said outdated and contradictory legal provisions often delay project implementation and administrative decision-making, and would be examined to ensure legal clarity and consistency.

The fifth initiative is a state-level process re-engineering programme to simplify procedures for citizens and businesses interacting with the government.

The exercise will modernise rules and regulations across key departments, including Finance, Law, Taxes, Industries, Revenue and Local Self-Government, by reducing paperwork, eliminating unnecessary approval stages and promoting digital-first service delivery, Satheesan said.

He said the reforms are expected to simplify administrative procedures, improve project execution and make day-to-day interactions between citizens and government offices more efficient.

To oversee the implementation of these priority reforms and ensure coordination among departments, an Empowered Committee of Secretaries will be constituted, Satheesan said.