Modi dissolves ministerial groups to fast-track decision making

Ministers told to resolve issues on their own or bring those to the Prime Minister's Office or Cabinet Secretariat

Putting an end to the practice of prolonging decisions among groups of ministers, Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Saturday ordered ministries and departments to resolve pending issues themselves.

Modi directed the dissolution of nine empowered groups of ministers and 21 groups of ministers. In case of “difficulties”, the Prime Minister’s Office (PMO) and the Cabinet Secretariat will step in.

The move was aimed at empowering ministries and departments, said an official PMO release, and would expedite decisions and fix accountability. Ministries and departments would now process issues pending before the ministerial groups and take decisions themselves, the release added.

Modi believes accountability is diluted when decisions are sent to ministerial groups. Individual ministers in his government will have to stand up for their decisions.

A secretary in one of the economic ministries said: “The Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs (CCEA) can take decisions and complex issues can be resolved by the committee of secretaries.” Some of the ministerial groups of the Manmohan Singh government, like the one on gas pricing, had become irrelevant because a decision on the issue had been taken by CCEA.

The secretary, however, pointed out smaller groups of ministers might still be needed to take decisions on issues like setting price bands while divesting the government’s holding in public-sector companies. “Such decisions can, however, be taken by the committee of secretaries and ratified by CCEA,” he said.

Former petroleum secretary R S Pandey said ministries should take decisions themselves and wherever Cabinet clearance was required, it should be resolved at that level. “But even now a group of ministers can be set up in exceptional cases.”

The release also said the Cabinet Secretariat and PMO would facilitate decision-making wherever ministries faced difficulties. Though this is being seen as a move to vest more power in PMO, the secretary who did not want to be named said issues were being resolved in PMO and the Cabinet Secretariat even during the United Progressive Alliance regime.

Last week, the new government’s portfolio announcement came with a caveat that “all important policy issues and all other portfolios not allocated to any minister” would be handled by the prime minister. “More than the scrapping of groups of ministers, it is this announcement that will make PMO stronger. But if PMO sits on decisions, it will be bad,” said Pandey.

Through the new directive, Modi put an end to a system introduced by the Atal Bihari Vajpayee-led National Democratic Alliance government. However, Vajpayee’s legacy of PMO being stronger than the Cabinet Secretariat is likely to continue.

Manmohan Singh not only continued with ministerial groups but also created a parallel decision-making apparatus under (then finance minister, now President) Pranab Mukherjee, who headed 25 of these, and P Chidambaram, who headed 10. Once Mukherjee moved out of the government, the groups were reconstituted with A K Antony and Chidambaram heading most.

If the Manmohan Singh Cabinet could not resolve an issue, it would create a group of ministers. This trend reversed with ministers deciding to go back to the Cabinet even if they were “empowered”. In the aftermath of A Raja, former telecom minister, serving a jail sentence, no individual minister wants to decide on an issue that could bring investigators to his door.

SCRAPPED TO ADD SPEED

• Nine EGoMs: on gas pricing, food and food inflation, telecom spectrum, etc
• 21 GoMs: on coal, WTO, mass rapid transit systems, etc
• In case of “difficulties”, PMO and the Cabinet Secretariat to intervene
• Creation of GoMs had started under the NDA government
• The UPA govt, at one point, had 35 EGoMs and GoMs
• Scrapping of these groups is aimed at making ministers more accountable for their decisions

Diesel price raised by 50 paise a litre for retail sale

In the first diesel price increase since the Narendra Modi-led government took charge at the Centre, Indian Oil Corporation (IOC) on Saturday announced a 50-paisa-a-litre increase (excluding state levies) from midnight. The oil marketing companies are going to continue with the monthly diesel price increase effected by the UPA government after an order in January last year. After the latest round of retail price increase, underrecovery (revenue loss) on sale of each litre of diesel, would stand at Rs 2.80, IOC said in a statement. The company is also incurring losses of Rs 32.87 on sale of a litre of PDS kerosene and Rs 432.3 on selling every cylinder of domestic cooking gas.