State government gives nod for policy research institute

Mumbai: To regularly assess the state policies and legislations, the Maharashtra government has given its approval to set up a research institute.

According to the government resolution issued on July 7, the proposed Maharashtra Policy Research Institute (MPRI) will conduct a comparative evaluation of schemes and programmes undertaken by other states and make appropriate recommendations.

The decision to set up the institute was taken by the state Cabinet in the month of June this year.  The institute will primarily be responsible for providing the government with complete data and analysis of state policies and other important issues. It is likely to be based in Tathavade in Pune.

According to the state minister for finance and planning, Sudhir Mungantiwar, the need of setting up such an institute was felt becausethere was no mechanism available with the government to evaluate the implementation of its various schemes, policies and legislations. “Till now, the Maharashtra government had no mechanism in place to find whether its policies and programmes are being effectively implemented, are they serving the intended target and if the people were really benefiting from them or not,” said Mr Mungantiwar.

“In other countries, governments have research institutes to help them in devising policies and programmes and to evaluate their effectiveness. The MPRI, apart from assessing the schemes, shall also help the government in fine-tuning or if needed discarding the outdated laws and policies,” the finance minister further added.

As per the government resolution (GR), the institute shall formulate training and upgradation programmes for the administrative machinery. It also says that third party experts will evaluate the policy research reports made at the institute.

“The MPRI will lay down the standing operating procedures and model templates for carrying out policy research,” reads the GR.