Thiruvananthapuram, July 7 (BPNS)

The Gujarat visit of Kerala’s chief secretary VP Joy and another officer to study the techniques in the Gujarat Chief Minister’s e-governance dashboard system in April had invited a lot of brickbats.

Now, chief minister Pinarayi Vijayan informed the Assembly that the government had not directed the officers to submit a report on the same. He also said that the visit from April 27 to 29, 2022 had cost the exchequer Rs 54,002.

Answering another question, the CM said that the visit was not to study Gujarat model governance.

Earlier, it was reported that the CPI(M) central leadership took a strong stance against the visit as it observed that it might help the BJP to derive political mileage.

Meanwhile, following the visit the chief secretary is said to have lauded the state-of-the-art system to monitor government services and getting feedback from beneficiaries as ‘the leading force towards good governance.

He was also quoted as saying that it was following Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s suggestion that it was decided to see the system as it will help in monitoring service delivery.

The CM dashboard, comprising a large screen displaying real-time data, has been set up at Gujarat chief minister Bhupendra Patel’s residence.