According to officials, the scorecards will quantitatively assess the performance of both individuals and departments to ensure a structured and outcome-based form of governance.

The officials said that the scorecard carries a total of 100 marks and is aimed at assessing performance across roughly a dozen parameters, which comprise both negative marking and discretionary marks.

This reflects an effort to balance objective metrics with qualitative judgment, the officials said, adding that Cabinet Secretary T.V. Somanathan sent the first set of the scorecard, which covers the months of September, October, and November 2025, to all Secretaries earlier this month.

File Disposals

Giving details of the parameters covered under the scorecard, the officials said that among several of them, file disposal has been accorded the highest weightage of 20 marks, which underscores the government’s emphasis on reducing delays and pendency in decision-making.

Output and activities of the departments, as well as expenditure on schemes and capital expenditure, carry 15 marks each, and the other parameters include public grievance redressal, the quality and timeliness of Cabinet notes, completion of projects monitored by the Project Monitoring Group (PMG), and the timely disposal of bills by the Pay and Accounts Office (PAO) and the Chief Controller of Accounts (CCA).

Scorecard Framework

Besides positive scoring, the scorecard framework also has an element of negative marks up to 12, the officials said, adding that these might be imposed for excessive expenditure on foreign visits or official events, abnormal pendency of files at the level of the Secretary, and delays in payments to Micro, Small, and Medium Enterprises (MSMEs). The inclusion of negative marks is intended to act as a deterrent against practices that undermine fiscal discipline and administrative efficiency.

Similarly, the scorecard also allows five discretionary marks, which the Cabinet Secretary might award for exceptional work or noteworthy contributions by a Secretary, a Department, or a Ministry. This provision is designed to recognise achievements that may not have been fully captured in the normal quantitative process.

Assessing Efficiency

The decision comes in the wake of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s repeated emphasis on the need to eliminate procedural delays and improve delivery at all levels of government. The overarching objective is to assess administrative performance and efficiency in both absolute and relative terms, using what is described as an objective and fair methodology.

Notably, the scorecards will not only track a department’s performance over time, but will also enable comparisons across departments, leading to healthy competition within the bureaucracy.

Towards Common Framework

According to sources, the Cabinet Secretary, while outlining the rationale behind the move, told Secretaries that the absence of perfect measurement tools should not dissuade them from measuring performance at all, and, in this context, cited the example of the Civil Services Examination, wherein marks obtained by candidates from different subject streams are compared using a common framework.

The initiative builds on earlier reforms undertaken by the Cabinet Secretariat. In 2024, changes were introduced in the practice of monthly demi-official letters sent by Secretaries to the Cabinet Secretary, with the inclusion of ministry-specific quantitative performance indicators. These measures were intended to bring greater precision and consistency to internal reporting.