Sri Lanka’s President Ranil Wickremesinghe seeks India’s help with policy reforms, governance, public service delivery

Sri Lanka President Ranil Wickremesinghe has urged India’s National Centre for Good Governance (NCGG) to help establish a University of Governance and Public Policy in Sri Lanka. The delegation which was on a two-day visit was led by the Director General of NCGG, Bharat Lal.

During the meeting, Mr. Wickremesinghe shared his vision for Sri Lanka and a strategy to address the country’s recent economic challenges, centered around policy reforms, good governance, digitisation, capacity building and training, institution building, and assured public service delivery.

He also admired India’s management of socio-economic development and its high economic growth rate.

Mr. Wickremasinghe requested the NCGG to extend necessary help to Sri Lanka based on India’s experience of digital governance and participatory policymaking. Mr. Lal enumerated several digital initiatives like Direct Benefit Transfer powered by JAM Trinity, higher collection of direct and indirect taxes and e-monitoring system of Jal Jeevan mission as evidence of difference brought about by digitisation.

Mr. Lal elaborated on the policies adopted by Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi when he was the Chief Minister of Gujarat, which led to double-digit growth and subsequent citizen-centric policies that have improved India’s economic growth, public service delivery, and the quality of life of its citizens.

The NCGG, which was set up by the Indian government in 2014 as an autonomous institution to focus on good governance, policy reforms, training, and capacity building of civil servants of India and other developing countries, has taken up capacity building of civil servants of several developing countries in partnership with the Ministry of External Affairs, Government of India.