Kerala Cabinet Clears Five Reforms To Digitise Governance, Track Every Rupee

The Kerala Cabinet on Wednesday approved a series of governance reforms aimed at modernising public administration, improving transparency and making government services more efficient.Announcing the decisions after the Cabinet meeting, Chief Minister VD Satheesan said the measures would create a comprehensive digital governance framework, strengthen project monitoring and help plug financial leakages that have cost the state over the years.At the centre of the reforms is the launch of the Special Asset Management Platform for Administration, Tracking and Harmonisation (SAMPATH), a centralised digital registry that will maintain records of all government-owned assets, including land, buildings, heritage structures, roads, dams, bridges, vehicles and machinery.The Cabinet also approved an upgrade of the existing PlanSpace portal into PlanSpace 2.0, a GIS-enabled project registry that will digitally track all government capital projects. Every project will be geo-tagged with details such as its location, implementing agency, approving authority, funding source and stage of construction, enabling real-time monitoring.To improve institutional efficiency, the government will create a unified digital registry of around 591 government institutions, which together account for nearly Rs 19,000 crore in annual salary expenditure. The exercise will review overlapping or obsolete institutions and examine whether they can be merged or integrated to eliminate duplication.The Cabinet further decided to undertake a comprehensive review of existing laws to remove outdated, unnecessary or conflicting legal provisions that often delay the implementation of government projects.Completing the reform package is a state-wide process re-engineering initiative covering key departments such as Finance, Law, Revenue, Taxes, Industries and Local Self-Government. The exercise aims to simplify administrative procedures, reduce paperwork, minimise repeated office visits and inspections, and improve both the ease of living and the ease of doing business in Kerala.