Timed out

Finance ministry officials are getting some practical lessons on the importance of punctuality these days, courtesy Finance Minister P Chidambaram just one month into the job. He is well known for reaching meetings and conferences on time and is fairly scathing with those who don’t do the same. Another lesson they are learning is the art of the precis. Whenever the finance minister calls an official for briefing on a particular issue, the official is allotted a time, say five minutes, to make his point. “We have to explain everything in those five minutes. You can’t beat around the bush. So, it needs a lot of preparation before one faces him,” said one official.