1. The Indian governance structure—a summary. -- 2. Evaluation under the planning comission: evolution and current status. -- 3. The demand for accountability and evaluation. -- 4. The supply side and operational issues. -- 5. New institutional arrangements: MIS, outcome budgeting, performance management, and the independent evaluation office. -- 6. Structural issues about ensuring accountability and outcomes of growing public expenditure. -- 7. The way forward

This paper is discusses the evolution of India’s approach to monitoring and evaluation of government programs. It is organized into 8 sections. (1) Describes the Indian government structure and sets the context for the challenges of building a government-wide Myamp;E system in India. (2) Outlines a short history of the evaluation system under the planning commission and its stages of development. (3) Examines the demand side of evaluation – the sources of demand for accountability, especially in recent years, and for evaluation in particular, and the locus of decisions regarding the selection of which programs to monitor and evaluate. (4) Discusses supply-side and operational issues such as staffing and capacity, and technical approaches (including the type or range of methodology applied). This section also examines the role of the private sector, think tanks, and civil society. (5) Examines the new institutional arrangements Myamp;E. This section also examines the state of management information systems (MISs), outcome budgeting encouraged by the Ministry of Finance, and the performance management system as it operates in India. (6) Discusses the new Independent Evaluation Office (which became functional recently, in 2013). (7) Highlights the fiscal issues underpinning the emerging accountability and effectiveness processes. It outlines the current system of fiscal transfers from the center to the states and the highly centralized central-state fiscal relations, and how they may affect performance and evaluation. (8) Concludes with some observations about ways forward.