Cabinet rejig: Faced with a talent crunch, Modi should merge ministries

PM should make govt leaner

This article first appeared in Business Standard on 6.8.2017. Business Standard is republishing this revised article with the Modi government all set to go in for a major Cabinet reshuffle and expansion this week.

With the monsoon session of Parliament having ended about a fortnight ago,  Prime Minister Narendra Modi has now got down to the task of reshuffling his 72-member Council of Ministers. Never before in his tenure has the task of a ministerial reshuffle appeared more urgent.

Three senior Cabinet ministers have left the government in the last few months and their ministerial responsibilities are now being shared by other Cabinet members. In March this year, Manohar Parrikar quit the defence ministry to take charge of Goa as its chief minister and Finance Minister Arun Jaitley was asked to hold additional charge of this critical ministry. Jaitley was already in charge of two ministries — finance and corporate affairs — and this decision meant that a third ministry was added to his portfolio.

In July,  M Venkaiah Naidu was chosen to be the National Democratic Alliance’s vice-presidential candidate and that led to his resignation from two important ministries — information and broadcasting, which was handed over to Textiles Minister Smriti Irani as additional charge, and housing and urban affairs ministry became an additional responsibility for Narendra Singh Tomar, who also continued to be the minister in charge of rural development, panchayati raj, drinking water and sanitation. For Tomar, it is a heavy burden as head of four different ministries.

The untimely death of Environment, Forest and Climate Change Minister Anil Madhav Dave in May created yet another ministerial vacancy. Once again, this was filled by giving Harsh Vardhan additional responsibility of this ministry. Vardhan is already holding charge of two ministries — science and technology, and earth sciences.

A series of railway accidents has given rise to the possibility that Railway Minister Suresh Prabhu might be considered for a new portfolio. There are also a few ministers who may have to be replaced on grounds of non-performance.

The first task for Modi in the proposed reshuffle, therefore, will be to reduce the workload of ministers, who have been burdened with new ministries that are quite unrelated to their existing portfolios. This means finding new talents, which is quite a task given the paucity of Modi’s manpower resources.

What can Modi do? He can use this opportunity to fulfil his earlier promise of providing maximum governance with minimum government. Nothing can be better than fulfilling that promise by pruning the size of the government at the top. The talent crunch that Modi faces can only provide further justification for a proposal to merge a few ministries to obviate the need for identifying capable ministers to head them.

For instance, with Air India to be sold, is there a need for a separate Cabinet minister for civil aviation? Why can’t it be part of an omnibus transport ministry, with a minister of state in charge of the sector? Indeed, the railways, roads, highways, shipping, waterways and aviation should be merged into one mega ministry with one Cabinet minister in charge and separate ministers of state heading these different departments.

Modi has already brought all the energy-related sectors, except petroleum, under one minister, but not one ministry. This is the time for him to take the next logical step: Merge all energy-related departments into one omnibus energy ministry that would include coal, power, non-conventional energy resources and even petroleum products. There can be one Cabinet minister for energy with ministers of state in charge of these different sectors. For strategic reasons, the atomic energy department should still remain under the prime minister.

Why does the government need two ministers for steel — one at the Cabinet level and the other as a minister of state? Why shouldn’t steel be made part of a mega industry ministry? Indeed, there is no need for two separate ministers — one for micro, small and medium industries and the other for heavy industries and public enterprises. A sensible option would be to merge all these ministries under three different Cabinet ministers into one industry ministry and, if necessary, let the individual departments be handled by separate ministers of state.

Rajiv Gandhi in 1985 created two omnibus ministries — the human resource development ministry with P V Narasimha Rao as its head and the transport ministry with Bansi Lal in charge, where all the transportation sector departments were led by ministers of state. Political expediency over the years has seen successive governments dilute that principle. The transport ministry has been dismantled and status quo ante restored. The human resource development ministry, too, has been diluted with culture, art, sports, youth welfare, women’s affairs and skills development emerging as independent ministries or departments.

Will Modi resume that exercise to streamline these ministries through mergers and make the government leaner?