This is indeed wonderful news.  The detailing is staggering.  In this connection, I am reminded of a discussion I had with Shri Anil Desai of Gulmohur Residents Federation, Juhu, in the recent past. 

He being of the 'financial world' has come up with what I call an inflection point in governance-thought.  He has proposed a 'rating system for civic governance' for which grading could be done on the same lines as Corporates and Financial Institutions, who are offered grades of AAA, AA, A, BBB, BBA and so on.  I am not sure of the sequence of alphabets which indicate the scale from top (100) to bottom (0), but I am sure one can find the same in reports of CARE, CRISIL, etc. and decide how many grades should be there. 

Various service verticals are to be taken and the categorization of service offered within the vertical is to be done.  This data is aready available as per your email reg. MCGM's E-Government Initiative.  This can be done for various wards and municipalities across a state.  The quality of service offered is to be measured on preset parameters by a grading system.  This needs to be done and ... it will be the main work since it involves so many complex variables and constants and weightages. 

It will thereby be possible to rate a desk or department on an annual basis.  This will be an excersise in transparency, since both the citizens on either side of the desk will know what to do and what to expect.  Its like going to a A-grade restaurant or investing in a BBB rated deposit.  Those that wish to grow or avoid a serious bad rating in their personal record will neccessarily need to upgrade the quality of service offered to citizens.  Comparisons would be made accross wards and towns and probably over time a race would commence to get a superior grade. 

Such a rating would be much superior to the current system of the immediate superior and colleagues giving a rating since it will broad based over citizens, time, departments and wards.  Currently other than FIs, hospitals, hotels, real estate, educational institutions and so on are all using rating system to allow informed decision making.  Basically it will a metric for measuring probable quality. 

Citizens in a city ward will insist on better service since a bad rating will mean that the corporators and the system is not taking note of a poor rating.  Bonuses and incentives would depend on the rating and it might kick start a selective decrease in the corruption index. 

Now my point is that this could be incorporated in the TCS designed systemic software since data mining will be easy from the 'computerisation initiative'.  This can be even done at a later stage provided provision is made at the design stage of the software.  I have marked a copy of this email to Shri Anil who 'owns' the idea.  It is imperative that this be developed and taken forward.  I could request some MBAs who will devote some hours each week to develop the model which could then be thrown to TCS and the MCGM for approval.  I request a meet among some of us to take this forward if some of you are 'electrified' by the idea like I am. 

Best wishes.  PRAFUL VORA  2623 9739 snpexim@...

cc: anildesai.juhu@...