NEW DELHI: Prime Minister Narendra Modi will be starting a monthly conference call with state chief secretaries and secretaries of the Union government starting March 25 for the speedy redressal of grievances and monitoring and implementation of projects.The new governance programme has been dubbed Pragati — Proactive Governance and Timely Implementation. Nripendra Misra , the prime minister’s principal secretary, explained the thrust of the initiative in a March 9 note to Union secretaries and state chief secretaries.“The PM has been quite anxious to design a credible mechanism for redressal of public grievances,” he wrote. “He is equally keen to see that programmes and projects launched by the government(s) are monitored properly for timely implementation and desired outcome. In the same spirit and for holistic development of the country, it is also necessary to facilitate from government of India level the projects of the states.”The programme will be tied together by technology, with information on projects being available at a click. The Pragati sessions will take place every fourth Wednesday. Misra’s note elaborated on the architecture of the Pragati IT platform.“The design is that when the PM reviews the issue he should have on his screen the issue as well as the latest updates regarding the same,” Misra wrote. “During the interaction, PM will discuss and understand the problem areas and will give suitable directions. These directions will remain in the system for further follow-up and review till finality of the matter.”To be sure, the system may be seen as bypassing the chief ministers. An aide to Uttarakhand Congress chief minister Harish Rawat sought “greater respect for the federal structure of the country. It would be much better if the Prime Minister discusses the issues with the chief minister.” The person didn’t want to be named.A top bureaucrat said although the PMO’s monitoring of projects is always helpful, the initiative could give rise to concerns about the Centre-state framework. The Pragati programme will attempt to find solutions for issues “picked up from the available data base regarding public grievances, on-going programmes and pending projects”, Mishra wrote.