The Programme Evaluation Organization was established in October, 1952, as an independent organization, under the general guidance and direction of the Planning Commission with a specific task of evaluating the community development programmes and other Intensive Area Development Schemes. The development of methods and techniques of evaluation in the First Five Year Plan and setting up of evaluation machineries in the States during Third Plan (1961-66) and Fourth Plan (1969-74) contributed to the growing importance of evaluation in the planning process. Gradually with the extension of the Plan Programmes/Schemes in a variety of sectors, viz. agriculture, cooperation, rural industries, fisheries, health, family welfare, rural development, rural electrification, public distribution, tribal development, social forestry, etc., the evaluation work undertaken by the PEO was extended to other important Centrally Sponsored Schemes. In 1973, PEO was merged with the Planning Commission.

1. Functions and Objectives

The Programme Evaluation Organization (PEO) undertakes evaluation of selected programmes/schemes under implementation, as per the requirement of the various Divisions of Planning Commission and Ministries/Departments of Government of India. The evaluation studies are designed to assess the performance, process of implementation, effectiveness of the delivery systems and impact of programmes. These studies are diagnostic and aim at identifying the factors contributing to success/or failure of various programmes and deriving lessons for improving the performance of existing schemes through mid-course corrections and better design of future programmes.

Broadly speaking, the objectives of evaluation work taken up by PEO includes objective assessment of process and impact of the development programmes, identifying the areas of success and failures at different stages of administrations and execution, analysis of reasons for success or failure, examining extension methods and people’s reactions thereto and deriving lessons for future improvement in the formulation and implementation of the new programmes/schemes. Evaluation in this sense has been recognized as quite distinct and separate from analysis of progress and review on the one hand, and inspection, checking and scrutiny of the schemes and works on the other hand.

The PEO is conducting external evaluation, independent of the administrative channels, through direct observations, sample surveys and social science research methods. Thus, the evaluation studies carried out by the PEO are different from progress reporting or checking and scrutiny work as being done in the administrative Ministries/Deptts. However, the PEO tries to involve planners and implementing agencies at all stages of evaluation to make the PEO reports useful.

2. PEO and the Planning Process

The Planning Commission in India recognized quite early in the Planning process that effective design and implementation of Plan Schemes required knowledge of the ground realities so that the interaction between the project and its environment as well as the outcome became predictable. The Government of India established the PEO in October, 1952 for conducting external evaluation, independent of the administrative channels, through direct observations, sample surveys and use of social science research methods. The findings and suggestions of the evaluation studies conducted by PEO have been used while formulating various Five Year Plans. The evaluations of some of the major schemes & will be completed by the time of the mid-term review of the Eleventh Plan.

The strategy proposed above is likely to contribute to efficiency in resource use and improved performances of plan programmes. Efforts will be made to rejuvenate existing evaluation machinery and to network with evaluation capacity that exists outside Government. Emphasis will be given on:

In the XI Plan, PEO will be strengthened to upgrade its capacity to meet the requirement of greater evaluation. Emphasis would also be given on networking with evaluation capacity that exists outside government so that robust evaluation findings can be generated.

3. Plan Scheme for Strengthening Evaluation

A new Central Plan Scheme “Strengthening Evaluation Capacity in Government” was introduced in the year 2005-06. The objective of the Scheme is to provide quick and useful information for planners and policy makers. Quality evaluation of various programmes and projects would bring improvement in public sector performance and also address a broad range of issues relating to economy, efficiency, effectiveness, sustainability and relevance of public sector funding and development intervention. For the years 2006-07, 2007-08 and 2008-09, Rs.8.55 crore, Rs.26 crore and Rs. 12 crore respectively were sanctioned to PEO under this scheme.

Objectives of the Scheme :

4. Organizational Structure

The PEO is primarily a field level organization under the overall charge of the Deputy Chairman, Planning Commission. It has a three-tier structure with its Headquarters at Planning Commission, New Delhi. The middle rung is represented by the Regional Evaluation Offices, while the next link are the Field Units known as the Project Evaluation Offices.

At the apex is the Headquarters at New Delhi, which is responsible for evolving suitable methodologies including statistical designs for various types of evaluation studies, organizing, execution and monitoring of sample surveys, data processing, statistical analysis and interpretation of qualitative and quantitative data generated by the field units and also for bringing out the Evaluation Reports. The Organization is headed by the Adviser (Evaluation). At the headquarters, a Joint Adviser, 5 Directors/Deputy Advisers and four Senior Research Officers support the Adviser. The Directors/Deputy Advisers are responsible for designing and execution of evaluation studies and act as “Project Directors”.

The middle link of the PEO represents 7 Regional Evaluation Offices, which are located at Chandigarh, Chennai, Hyderabad, Jaipur, Kolkata, Lucknow and Mumbai. Each Regional Evaluation Office is headed by a Regional Evaluation Officer of the rank of Director/Deputy Adviser and is assisted by two Research Officers, two Economic Investigators Grade-I and one Economic Investigators Grade-II. The Regional Evaluation Offices are responsible for the supervision of the field work; scrutiny and compilation of field data collected for Evaluation Studies and provide guidance to Project Evaluation Offices under their jurisdiction. They are also responsible for maintaining a close liaison with the State Governments and also providing technical guidance to State Evaluation Units in organizing State level studies.

The Field Units, known as Project Evaluation Offices constitute the third tier of PEO. These are located in the capital cities of 8 major states of the country, viz. at Guwahati, Bhubaneswar, Shimla, Bangalore, Bhopal, Patna, Thiruvananthapuram and Ahmedabad. Each Project Evaluation Office is headed by Project Evaluation Officer of the rank of Senior Research Officer, who is assisted by one Research Officer, two Economic Investigators, Grade-I and two Economic Investigators Grade-II. Each Project Evaluation Office is under the administrative control of a Regional Evaluation Office. The Project Evaluation Offices in the Programme Evaluation Organization are responsible for reporting the working and progress of the development programmes in their areas and for conducting evaluation studies under the guidance of their concerned REOs. They are also responsible for maintaining a close liaison with the State Governments under the overall supervision of Regional Evaluation Officer.

The State/UT-wise coverage of the PEO and its field units known as Regional Evaluation Offices and Project Evaluation Offices is as under :

State/UT-wise coverage of the Programme Evaluation Organisation

5. DevelopmentEvaluation Advisory Committee (DEAC)

In order to guide the Programme Evaluation Organization for prioritization of areas of research, methodologies to be adopted and establishment of linkages between PEO and various evaluation/ research organizations and academic institutions besides follow up action on evaluation results, the Planning Commission has set up a Development Evaluation Advisory Committee (DEAC) on 29 th November, 2004 under the Chairmanship of Deputy Chairman, Planning Commission. All Members of the Planning Commission, four eminent research professionals from renowned Research Institutes and Universities are Members of DEAC and Adviser (Evaluation) is the Member Secretary. The main functions of this Committee are as follows:

6. Seminars/Workshops

To get feedback on the quality of evaluation reports and their utility in design and implementation of programmes PEO interacts with planners, implementing agencies and academicians. Seminars are held and meetings are organized on a regular basis on topics relevant to the areas of work of PEO. Representatives of the concerned Ministries/Departments, Academicians, Research Institutions etc. who are known to have worked in specific areas and representatives of State governments are invited to the seminars.

7. Training Programmes for Evaluation Personnel  

8. Reference Books/PEO Library

The PEO (Headquarters) maintains its own library (Technical) where books on evaluation techniques and reports of PEO are available for ready reference.

9. PEO Reports on the Internet

In order to disseminate the findings of PEO studies for improvement in programme implementation and increasing the awareness of people regarding developmental programmes, PEO reports are available on internet at Planning Commission Website www.planningcommission.nic.in. The reports are released to media, leading research institutions and State Evaluation Organisations. These are also available to the researchers and general public.

11. Progress of Work in the PEO

The Programme Evaluation Organization has so far conducted 198 Studies. At presently, around 30 Programmes / Schemes are at various stages of evaluation in PEO.