Imagine walking past the Deputy Commissioner’s office in Baramulla, Budgam, Srinagar or Jammu and encountering a giant electronic screen displaying the district’s development report card. How many roads were sanctioned? How many completed? Which water supply schemes remain unfinished? How much money was released, how much spent, and who is responsible for the delays?
No political speeches. No ribbon-cutting ceremonies. No advertisements celebrating achievements. Just numbers, visible to everyone.
Why shouldn’t this become a permanent feature outside every district headquarters in Jammu and Kashmir?
The Missing Public Report Card
Governments routinely announce development packages, inaugurate projects and publicise expenditure. Yet the ordinary citizen often struggles to discover the precise status of a road, school, hospital or drinking-water scheme in their locality.
The irony is that Jammu and Kashmir already possesses much of the necessary digital infrastructure.
Its Janbhagidari portal provides information about development works, allocations and expenditure. BEAMS tracks budget authorisations, while PROOF facilitates photographic verification of works. The government’s own Economic Survey 2024–25 records 1,15,494 works on the Janbhagidari platform for that financial year.
The information exists. The real question is whether it reaches citizens in a form they can readily understand, verify and question.
Learn From Kenya
Consider Makueni County in Kenya. Its publicly accessible Projects Monitoring and Tracking System allows citizens to examine development projects, their budgets, expenditure and implementation status.
The dashboard currently lists 2,701 projects, including 1,812 completed works, 178 ongoing works and 705 under procurement.
If a Kenyan county can publicly account for thousands of development projects, why cannot every district in Jammu and Kashmir maintain an equally accessible and prominently displayed report card?
New York City publishes construction project costs, implementation stages and expected completion dates. Kerala uses its Sulekha system to monitor local government development plans and expenditure.
These examples demonstrate that public scrutiny of development expenditure is administratively feasible.
Twenty Districts, Twenty Public Dashboards
Imagine every Deputy Commissioner’s office displaying five essential figures: works sanctioned, works allotted, works underway, works completed and works overdue.
Each project should carry a unique identification number, sanctioned amount, contractor’s name, commencement date, completion deadline, expenditure incurred and current status.
Delayed projects should additionally display the recorded reason for delay, the responsible department and the revised deadline.
A digital version should allow citizens to search by district, constituency, block, village and department. A QR code on the public display could lead directly to the detailed project register. And a return integration can enable a citizen to refute any fake claim made on the dashboards.
The display need not disclose confidential information or personal details. Its purpose is accountability for public expenditure.
Let Politicians Face the Numbers
Consider the implications for elected representatives.
An MLA might claim credit for securing a road. The dashboard would show whether the work was sanctioned, funded, allotted and completed. It would also distinguish between a politician’s recommendation and the department’s responsibility for execution.
A minister visiting a district could no longer rely exclusively on carefully prepared presentations highlighting achievements. The same public dashboard would reveal unfinished projects and persistent delays.
Deputy Commissioners, engineers and departmental heads would have a visible record of their responsibilities.
Citizens, journalists and civil society organisations could independently question discrepancies between official claims and physical reality.
Importantly, transparency must be accompanied by verification. A project marked ‘completed’ on a computer should not remain unfinished on the ground. Photographs, inspection reports and public feedback must form part of the system.
Make Transparency Unavoidable
This proposal does not demand another expensive government portal. Jammu and Kashmir already maintains several digital systems. The task is to integrate their relevant information and make it visible through simple, regularly updated public displays.
Begin with a pilot in one district of Kashmir and another in Jammu. Publish clear reporting standards, verify the data and progressively extend the system to all twenty districts.
Governance should not be measured by the number of announcements governments make, but by the promises they fulfil.
A government willing to display its achievements should be equally willing to display its failures.
And perhaps the day every citizen can stand outside a Deputy Commissioner’s office and see where every public rupee went, Jammu and Kashmir will have taken a meaningful step from publicity-driven governance towards genuine public accountability.
How other governments track public works
| Country/state | Public monitoring practice |
|---|---|
| Makueni County, Kenya | Project-wise budgets, expenditure, completion status and citizen feedback |
| New York City | Construction costs, project phases and projected deadlines |
| Kerala | Local development planning, approvals and expenditure through Sulekha |
| Brazil (Iporã municipality) | Municipal public-works information, including contracts and project status |
Sources: Makueni County PMTS, New York City Capital Projects Dashboard and Kerala Local Self Government Department. These are online systems; physical display at government headquarters is a proposed addition for J&K.
J&K already has the technology
| Existing system | What it monitors |
|---|---|
| Janbhagidari | Development works and expenditure |
| BEAMS | Budget allocation and releases |
| PROOF | Geotagged photographic verification |
| Physical Verification Portal | Verification progress and outstanding cases |
Sources: J&K government Finance Department, district administration and Directorate of Economics and Statistics.
