A K Bhattacharya: Divided we fall

RAISINA HILL

More Cabinet berths are possible when you divide ministries, but governance suffers.

Till July 1, 1992, there used to be a ministry for energy in the Union government. The energy ministry had three departments "" the department of power, the department of coal and the department of non-conventional energy sources. A reorganisation of the energy ministry took place on July 2, 1992 and the three departments became independent ministries. Did the reorganisation bring about any visible change in the way the three sectors were being supervised by the government? Those who have closely observed the functioning of these three departments in the last 15 years will point out four changes.

One, all the three departments have grown in size after they were converted into independent ministries. Two, ministerial ambitions have got a fillip. There are now more openings in the Cabinet or for ministers with independent charge. Three, civil servants have seen their empire grow. To be a secretary of one of the departments in a ministry is one thing and heading an entire ministry is quite another. And four, governance has suffered. An integrated view of the country's energy requirements has become even more difficult as coal and power are being looked at by two different ministries.

What has happened to the energy ministry is not unique. Ministerial restructuring in the last 15 years has essentially seen the creation of more ministries, more ministers and more secretaries. Till recently, there used to be a ministry for steel and mines. Now, you have a separate ministry for steel and an independent ministry for mines with a Cabinet minister. The department of company affairs used to be attached to the ministry of law and justice. For some years, the department of company affairs was attached to the finance ministry, largely because the then finance minister wanted that department to be brought under his administrative control. And now it has become an independent ministry. Not only that, it has now been renamed as the ministry for corporate affairs.

Worse proposals for ministerial restructuring have been discussed. The idea of splitting the finance ministry into two was mooted twice during the Vajpayee government. On both the occasions, the justification for making the revenue department an independent ministry outside the ministry of finance was the demand from one of the coalition partners in the government to accommodate one of its ministerial candidates in an independent portfolio. It was fortunate that Yashwant Sinha, who was being asked to agree to such splitting of the finance ministry, disagreed with the idea. And the proposal was dropped.

The possibilities of meaningless ministerial tinkering, however, are immense. Take, for instance, the ministry of shipping, road transport and highways. It will not take long for any government to split this ministry into two "" one for shipping and the other for road transport and highways, if there are any fresh demands for accommodating any senior politician or a civil servant. Similarly, the ministry for communications and information technology, the ministry for petroleum and natural gas and the ministry for commerce and industry are among the ideal candidates for such ministerial restructuring. The point is that all central governments in the last several years have used ministerial restructuring as an instrument for meeting political demands from within the party and from their alliance partners. Civil servants have, regrettably, played along in this game of proliferating ministries with more ministers and even more civil servants. The ministry of coal has one additional secretary, three joint secretaries and seven director/deputy secretary level officers in addition to the secretary. The civil aviation ministry has one additional secretary, three joint secretaries, seven directors and ten deputy secretaries in addition to a secretary. The story in other ministries is similar.

And it seems no one in the government is willing to call a halt to this exercise. A new proposal doing the rounds in the finance ministry is to create a separate department out of what is now currently only a division within the department of economic affairs. The financial sector division looking after the banking and the insurance sector is proposed to be carved out as a department. What this will achieve is difficult to gauge, except that some civil servants will have expanded their empire within the ministry. This may be less harmful than splitting the finance ministry as had been earlier proposed. But it is clearly time meaningless ministerial restructuring came to an end.