Patna, Feb. 1: Barely a fortnight into his second term, chief minister Nitish Kumar had issued an agenda for good governance on December 14 last year.

Now, the work to implement the points that figured on the agenda has begun.

One of these is promoting innovation, both in administration and society, with the government performing the role of the facilitator.

The general administration department (Gad) has started work to realise the goals of the agenda. It would put up the details of the agenda on the department’s website in a week and would solicit suggestions from both government employees and others to come up with innovative ideas that could be implemented for the betterment of the state.

“There can be any number of innovative ideas, both for making the functioning of government machinery more people-friendly and for the betterment of the society. We will invite suggestions from the common people and government officials,” Gad principal secretary Deepak Kumar told The Telegraph.

He added: “An official or a common man may have an innovative idea for simplifying the process of issuing different certificates by government offices. If the idea is practical, the government will implement it. The cost of implementing the idea would be borne by the government.”

The Gad principal secretary added that a farmer might have an innovative idea for getting better yields. Under the agenda of good governance, the state government would provide a platform to the farmer for sharing it with other tillers so that the state as a whole could benefit.

The state government would also promote innovation among the school and college students.

To ensure that a proper mechanism is in place for selection of innovative ideas for their replication at the state level, committees would be set up at the district, division and state levels.

“Each committee will have powers to sanction innovations including the costs, up to a certain extent. These details are being worked out,” Kumar said.

He added the government would make a special provision in the budget for 2011-12 to accommodate the expense for implementing the innovative ideas received.

This is not the first move implemented to introduce susashan. The state government recently announced setting up a commission to suggest ways for ameliorating the condition of economically weaker upper caste people. This point too figured in the agenda of good governance of NDA-II government.