Results Framework Document Management System in ICAR (RFDMS)

Abstract

Result Framework Document (RFD) provides a summary of the most important results that a department/ministry expects to achieve during the financial year. This document has two main purposes: (a) move the focus of the department from process-orientation to result-orientation, and (b) provide an objective and fair basis to evaluate department’s overall performance at the end of the year.

RFD is essentially a record of understanding between a Minister representing the people’s mandate, and the Secretary of a Department responsible for implementing this mandate. This document contains not only the agreed objectives, policies, programs and projects but also success indicators and targets to measure progress in implementing them. The RFD should contain the following six sections: Section 1 Institute’s Vision, Mission, Objectives and Functions, Section 2 Inter se priorities among key objectives, success indicators and targets, Section 3 Trend values of the success indicators, Section 4 Description and definition of success indicators and proposed measurement methodology, Section 5 Specific performance requirements from other departments that are critical for delivering agreed results, Section 6 Outcome / Impact of activities of department/ministry. Government of India prepared the format of RFD and issued guidelines to prepare RFDs in their departments/institutes (www.performance.gov.in). The database was created using MySQL database software for storage of the result of the various modules in RFDMS environment. MySQL has been chosen to develop the database because it efficiently manages large database, concurrent database users, has high transaction performance, and is compatible with .Net Technology. The database contains the details information on six section of RFD. User interface was developed to interact in RFDMS environment. This user interface is the only component of RFDMS that is visible to user. It transforms the user inputs in RFD document. A set of mock values was entered into the developed RFDMS for testing the system. It was found that system is generating the RFD report satisfactorily.