The Maharashtra cabinet has approved the formation of the Maharashtra Technical Assistance Cell, or Maha-TAC, under the Chief Minister’s Office to evaluate the implementation and outcomes of 25 major government schemes and 25 key policies, including housing, water, employment and health programmes.
The decision was taken at a cabinet meeting chaired by Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis. The state will use assistance from the Indian Institute of Management in Mumbai and the Centre for Research in Schemes and Policies, an organisation of former civil servants, to assess the schemes and policies.
The programmes listed for evaluation include the Mukhyamantri Majhi Ladki Bahin scheme, the Punyashlok Ahilyadevi Holkar loan waiver scheme, the Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojana, the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme, Jal Jeevan Mission and Ayushman Bharat.
The new cell will examine whether government programmes are achieving their stated objectives and whether public funds are reaching the intended beneficiaries fully and on time. It will also assess whether spending is being directed towards the intended purpose or is resulting in unproductive assets and other forms of wastage.
According to the information reported by Loksatta, the state currently does not have a mechanism to assess the effectiveness of its welfare schemes in a systematic manner. Maha-TAC is intended to enable evaluation alongside implementation, allowing departments to identify and address gaps while programmes are underway rather than only after completion.
The proposed institutional structure will include a steering committee headed by the Chief Secretary, along with Maha-TAC. Thirteen committees will be formed for policy-related work. The cell will consult government departments, industry representatives, implementing agencies, local self-government institutions and beneficiaries while carrying out its assessments.
Maha-TAC will conduct independent parallel evaluations of the 25 selected schemes every quarter and submit progress reports to the Chief Minister’s Office. Its stated objectives also include objectively analysing the state’s 25 major policies, proposing campaigns where required and coordinating different government schemes to reduce costs and provide combined benefits to citizens.
The evaluation process is also expected to measure scheme outcomes according to United Nations criteria. For housing and civic programmes, the proposed review could bring implementation agencies and local bodies into a common assessment framework, although the cabinet decision does not specify the individual indicators or reporting format that will be used.
The cell’s work will therefore cover more than expenditure tracking. It will examine whether schemes are reaching the correct people, whether delivery is timely and complete, whether assets created through public spending remain useful, and whether separate programmes can be integrated to improve outcomes. The government has not yet specified a public timeline for the first quarterly evaluations or identified the 25 policies that will be reviewed under the new framework.
