New Delhi (ABC Live): India is spending record sums on highways, railways, power systems, ports, and digital infrastructure. Therefore, project monitoring is no longer a routine administrative task. Instead, it has become a core tool for fiscal discipline, democratic oversight, and policy credibility.

Against this background, the PAIMANA / IPMD portal, hosted by the Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation, presents itself as the government’s main public interface for tracking large Central Sector infrastructure projects. According to its mandate, the portal monitors projects costing ₹150 crore and above and publishes periodic performance reviews of key infrastructure sectors.

However, a closer look shows a clear gap between institutional intent and public execution. Although the architecture promises transparency, the current public-facing experience weakens trust. As a result, PAIMANA functions more like a reporting window than a full monitoring system.

This distinction matters. Monitoring portals compete with informal narratives. When official dashboards appear incomplete or stale, public debate quickly shifts back to press leaks, anecdotes, and selective claims.

What PAIMANA Is Designed to Do

PAIMANA is not meant to be just a dashboard. Instead, it acts as the dissemination layer of a larger reporting pipeline.

First, line ministries and agencies feed project data through a unified IIG–PMG–OCMS system coordinated with the Department for Promotion of Industry and Internal Trade.
Then, MoSPI publishes the outputs—databases, reports, and dashboards—through the IPMD portal.

Because of this design, PAIMANA must be judged on more than visuals. Most importantly, it must be assessed on how clearly it governs the full data lifecycle, from reporting rules to public interpretation.

What the Portal Does Well

1. Clear mandate and disciplined scope

The portal sets a firm inclusion rule: only Central Sector projects costing ₹150 crore or more enter the system. Ministries must also update data every month.

This threshold matters. It keeps the system focused on high-value projects where delays and overruns carry serious fiscal risk. As a result, PAIMANA avoids being flooded with minor projects that add noise rather than insight.

2. Focus on causes, not just progress

IPMD documentation makes another important choice. The system records time and cost overruns along with reasons for delay, not only percentage completion.

This approach is crucial. Without reasons, monitoring turns into a scoreboard. With reasons, it can support accountability and corrective action.

3. Intent to enable structured data use

The public dashboard displays options to download data in CSV and XLSX formats across sector-wise, state-wise, and project-level views.

Compared to many government dashboards that lock users into static visuals, this design choice signals an intent to support deeper analysis—even if execution remains uneven.

4. Conservative privacy posture

The portal’s privacy policy states that it:

• does not collect personal data by default,

• records basic visit logs for statistics,

• does not use cookies, and

• captures email details only if a user chooses to contact the site.

Although modern analytics often go further, this stated preference for data minimisation aligns with good public-governance practice.

Where PAIMANA Falls Short

1. Data freshness remains unclear

On the public dashboard, the header still reads “Public Dashboard (as of N/A)”. In several places, aggregate figures show zero or remain stuck on “Loading…”.

Even if a technical issue caused this, the public effect is the same. Users cannot tell whether the data is current, partial, or selectively displayed.

As a result, trust weakens. Monitoring systems rely on visible freshness to retain credibility. Without it, evidence quickly gives way to speculation.

2. Coverage gaps lack transparency

The dashboard notes that it excludes MoRTH data because compilation is ongoing. However, roads form a large share of India’s infrastructure spending.

What the portal does not provide is a clear coverage statement explaining:

• which ministries remain excluded,

• since when,

• What share of the total project value is missing, and

• When inclusion is expected.

Without this context, users cannot separate actual performance trends from data gaps.

3. Report access depends on fragile interfaces

Project Monitoring and Performance Monitoring pages rely heavily on interactive filters. When these fail, report archives effectively disappear.

This design hurts serious users the most. Researchers, journalists, parliamentary staff, and auditors need stable links and predictable archives, not interfaces that depend on live scripts.

4. Standardisation lacks public documentation

The portal promises standardised metrics and improved treatment of overruns. However, it does not publish:

• a public data dictionary,

• clear definitions of original versus revised timelines,

• rules for cost revisions, or

• guidance on stalled projects, litigation stays, or re-tendering.

Therefore, even when users download data, they struggle to interpret it consistently across ministries.

5. Reporting incentives risk defensive data

The FAQ explains that ministries must report monthly and that non-reporting can attract negative marking under DPE MoU guidelines.

Enforcement matters. However, heavy reliance on penalties often encourages defensive reporting. Agencies may delay revisions, overstate progress, or soften risk descriptions.

What’s missing are modern safeguards, such as:

• anomaly flags,
• mandatory explanations for large deviations,
• random audit trails, and
• public disclosure of reporting quality indicators.

6. Restrictive linking policy conflicts with openness

The portal’s hyperlink policy requires prior permission before other sites link to it.

For a public monitoring tool, this stance is counterproductive. Monitoring data gains value when others can cite, embed, and cross-link it freely.

A Broader Pattern in Digital Governance

Importantly, PAIMANA’s challenges are not isolated. Similar gaps between policy ambition and platform execution have appeared across other government digital initiatives. For example, ABC Live’s analysis of BHASHINI, India’s flagship AI language platform, highlighted how strong backend architecture can still fail at the public interface layer when metadata clarity, trust signals, and execution discipline lag behind design intent.

👉 ABC Live internal link: https://abclive.in/2026/01/22/bhashini/

In both cases, the pattern is consistent. The state builds ambitious systems with centralised architecture and clear mandates. However, unless public-facing platforms clearly display freshness, coverage, definitions, and quality controls, they struggle to become tools of accountability rather than symbolic dashboards. Therefore, PAIMANA’s reform path reflects a wider lesson from India’s digital governance experience: execution transparency matters as much as policy scale.

A Structural Diagnosis

A complete monitoring ecosystem has four layers:

1. Data capture – handled through IIG–PMG–OCMS
2. Data governance – definitions, validation, audit trails
3. Dissemination – dashboards and reports
4. Actionability – issue escalation and resolution tracking

At present, PAIMANA clearly shows Layer 1 and partially delivers Layer 3. However, Layers 2 and 4 remain largely invisible to the public. Because of this, the system does not yet qualify as audit-grade monitoring.

Reform Scorecard (ABC Live Assessment)

How We Verified

• Reviewed publicly available IPMD mandate pages and dashboard interfaces
• Tested dashboard freshness, downloads, and report access
• Examined privacy and hyperlink policies
• Assessed the availability of metadata, definitions, and archives from a public-user perspective

This review relies only on publicly observable portal behaviour, without backend access.

Bottom Line

PAIMANA rests on a strong institutional foundation. However, monitoring systems earn trust through clarity, not claims.

Until MoSPI makes data freshness, coverage, definitions, revision rules, and quality indicators clearly visible, PAIMANA will remain a formal reporting interface rather than a true public accountability tool.

The solution does not require a visual overhaul.
Instead, it requires governance transparency built directly into the data itself.