White Papers to Working Systems - What does it take for improving Governance in India?

The week after May 4th has been nothing short of an electrifying spectacle. In the very many WhatsApp groups there were finally more updates about politics than the IPL. As a social entrepreneur, I welcome the political banter though I could use a little less of the adrenaline rush.

The swearing-in ceremony conducted on May 10th was a powerful & yet, simple affair. Powerful because Hon’ble CM Thiru. C. Joseph Vijay commenced with signing writ orders in his newly established capacity as the Chief Minister of Tamil Nadu before addressing the people. One such writ order was then passed as a G.O. by 3 PM the same day. I hope that this principle of ‘action-first’ continues & becomes the trademark of the mandate given by the people to Tamilaga Vettri Kazhagam.

Source: CNBC TV18 Thumbnail on YouTube

Following the orders, Hon’ble CM went on to address the crowd and what stood out to me in that address was his commitment to transparency and as a first step towards that every department would release a ‘white paper’. This is a welcome step. But, it isn’t dissimilar to the white paper launched by PTR Palanivel Thiagarajan, ex-Finance Minister, in August 2021.The claim is all too similar - there has been corruption in the previous administration, we shall lay out the facts and will work towards the welfare of the common people. My hope is that the approach taken after the white paper is different from those taken by its predecessors.

In the subsequent weeks, the launch of Ministry of Artificial Intelligence has been welcomed & lauded as a new-age reform. With the Ministry, earlier this week holding conversations for using AI in Governance to improve service delivery across key sectors such as medicine, agriculture and climate sciences amongst others. The reforms in governance - be it towards transparency or towards leveraging AI - seldom come from ‘electrifying moments’ like releasing white papers or forming ministries. It is the work that follows which will define transparency in governance. The work would need advances on these five fronts to ensure transparency in letter and spirit:

1. Harmonising Data for Use

Time and again in the development discourse we hear that we need “data-backed” governance, but we rarely ask what is the quality of data? It does not take a rocket scientist to say that bad data will result in bad decisions. Today, Tamil Nadu does not have a data problem. It has a data governance problem. We have state of the art systems starting from TN-EHMS, TN-ICDS, EMIS, UMIS to track our children from birth to universities. But, we are not able to use that data for public good because it is not harmonised.

It does not take a rocket scientist to say that bad data will result in bad decisions.

Earlier in 2024, I was working in a project with the Government of Tamil Nadu - aimed at reducing barriers to attend & access schools especially in the tribal regions of Tamil Nadu. We were trying to match children with the schools they enrolled & attended in a five kilometer radius to understand if they needed support with transportation. This activity with harmonised data would take approximately two hours, we spent six weeks on layering the data, cleaning it, auditing it before the data became ‘usable’. The decision to support children & expand access only took one meeting - but the preparation took six weeks. Six weeks of children still struggling to access schools. From the decision, to the pilot & scale up, only took six months, an entrenched problem that has been existent for the longest time - where walking to schools for two hours was normalised, the Government managed to pilot & fix the issue. With harmonised data, children walking two hours will not take a generation to identify - which means transparency in identifying core challenges affecting the population can be targetted & improved. Today, in the age of AI, harmonising data can be achieved at a fraction of cost with Tamil Nadu’s expertise. But, harmonising also requires patience & conviction. The need for robust data is foundational to the effectiveness of transparency & governance.

2. Evidence-informed Action

We have half-a-dozen portals on best practices, we even have an entire physical center “TN-PAGE” dedicated to innovations in governance. Yet, the percentage of children physically stunted in Tamil Nadu has reduced only by 13.4% in 30 years. We still have 25% of our children being stunted - that’s the reported data. The actual figure is estimated to be higher. Countries like Peru, Thailand and many more have bought it under 15% in the same time period. This demonstrates that there are proven large-scale interventions that can aid our decision making.

Yet, the percentage of children physically stunted in Tamil Nadu has reduced only by 13.4% in 30 years. We still have 25% of our children being stunted - that’s the reported data.

Unfortunately this evidence is often inaccessible to the decision maker. In fact, the advances made in our own state in the districts of Ramanathapuram or Dharmapuri are not informing actions in other districts. This needs to go beyond the best practices portal created for Aspirational Districts and similar initiatives. It needs to ensure that we curate & make available effective interventions that outline both the programmatic details (how) & impact data (why) to ensure we are scaling positive deviance. The need for evidence-informed action is the mechanism by which administration can demonstrate transparency in action, in schemes & in policies.

3. Monitoring, Review & Learning

There is a real fatigue amongst government staff (the ones closest to the ground) regarding monitoring/reviews. The biggest (read: persistent) transformation due to COVID-19 has been that conducting reviews now is faster than ever - one click on GMeet, attendance is taken and meetings start. This is faster, but not necessarily effective because any good review requires adequate preparation on both sides. To compound the problem, the review formats keep changing - hence comparing & learning becomes challenging. Hence, the fatigue and dilution is perceived, realised, voiced - but there is no incentive to change this entrenched pattern due to existing structures. There needs to be a predictable cycle of systematic monitoring & review that fosters a culture of learning (more on that below). We can always intersperse it with surprise visits & audits, but a necessary structure must be adopted & reinforced.

We often hear when we launch a new scheme - “It is old wine in a new bottle.” The sceptics’ first reaction to the announcement of “Singappen Athiradi Padai” was that it sounds similar to “Amma Patrol”. The impetus given by new schemes and new leadership for persistent problems is necessary to energise the system - the challenge is not the impetus, the challenge is the sharpness.

The impetus given by new schemes and new leadership for persistent problems is necessary to energise the system

The government needs to learn from its mistakes and gaps. There needs to be a culture of transparency fostered amongst government staff for transparency to percolate. Transparency to fail, learn and deliver on the promise to people. This ensures that execution matches vision - as opposed to reports published without movement on the ground.

4. Localising & Streamlining Capacity @ District Level

There are 39 departments listed in the Tamil Nadu government website. All the innovations and interventions for delivering meaningful public services to the people originate from these departments and converge to the District Collector in every district. A rudimentary search on TN IAS Intra portal shows that nearly 200 of the IAS officers preside in Chennai out of the total 326 in Tamil Nadu. The District Collectorate needs additional support - there were many initiatives by the previous Government to augment the capacity at the district or sub-district levels like the CM’s Green Fellowship, Tamil Nadu Education Fellowship and Focus Block Development Programme (excluding CM Fellowship as it placed Fellows in the capital city of Chennai). We need such initiatives to continue. We can place a team of ‘Vetri Tamizhagam Fellows’ at the district level. As learned from earlier experiments, it is vital for their role to be well defined, they need to be empowered and they need aid from the Collector to ensure the continuity & rigour of interventions.

There are innumerable district-level committees formed for various schemes by various departments. Most of these committees exist on paper. This is again a classic example of good intentions but poor execution. The defining trait of this newly elected government needs to be an increased bar of excellence in ‘execution’. This requires dissolution of weak forms of governance and to provide an umbrella structure to streamline governance at the district & block levels. These structures exist but often compete for time and attention with other immediate needs. A body composed of collectors, administrators, people representatives and related institutions that is integrated into the review mechanisms will greatly aid in improving efficiency of execution.

These efforts will greatly aid the district's capacity to improve effectiveness of governance and deliver the innovative schemes to the people.

5. Social Audits

Last, but not the least. Smartphone penetration in Tamil Nadu is at an all time high. As per the Comprehensive Modular Survey: Telecom, 2025 by Ministry of Statistics & Programme Implementation, 76.6% of households in rural Tamil Nadu have some version of mobile internet connectivity & smartphone access. The ability to leverage citizens as an arm of ground-truthing of implementation is easier than ever. This layer will ensure you are able to hold yourself, the administration accountable not only in the ballot box but every day of implementation. Imagine being able to ask women in every village and household - how safe they feel or prevalence of drugs in their neighbourhood and using this information to target your efforts to curb violence against women and reduce drug usage among youth. Social audits have long strengthened implementation of schemes globally, but they work particularly well in the contexts of building transparency & accountability. This approach is a double-edged sword, the moment you ask people to report if they have received a benefit, you also expose yourself to critique - from concerned as well as politically motivated groups in the population. But as Hon’ble CM espoused in his maiden address, all people are his people. The intent & clarity with which these audits are executed will aid both the positioning & execution of transparency in action.

Conclusion

On a closing note, Tamil Nadu has given the mandate to TVK for leading it into a new era - an era that much of the political leadership & people of Tamil Nadu are not familiar with, given the duopoly of the Dravidian parties since the historical mandate since 1967. TVK has the opportunity to create an example of leveraging AI for transparency in governance that can be emulated across India - with the focus on harmonising data, linking it to implementation that works, regularly monitoring & learning, building capacity in the roots & bringing the citizens who trusted you with the mandate into the fold - to be your eyes and ears - can truly bring transparency in action for governance and I hope the Hon’ble CM continues his ‘action-first’ approach to fostering transparency across all levels of the Government.