Poke Me: Is this an emaciated government?

This week's "Poke Me", invites your comments on 'Is this an emaciated government?' The feature will be reproduced on the edit page of the Saturday edition of the newspaper with a pick of readers' best comments.

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Hema Ramakrishnan
Prime Minister Narendra Modi hasn’t taken a break, his ministers have a punishing schedule, and the bureaucracy is working overtime. So, it seemed unfair when the Supreme Court recently frowned upon the government for acting like Kumbhakarna who shirked work by sleeping. The court made this remark for the environment ministry’s failure to assess the bio-diversity impact of hydel projects on the river basins in Uttarakhand. Work on these projects has been stayed, which is unfortunate, given the government’s commitment to re-start stalled projects.

A vote of confidence against the minister in charge, based on just this remark, is plain wrong. But it brings us to the question of whether it is sustainable to overburden competent ministers. Environment minister Prakash Javdekar also steers the I&B ministry and assists his senior colleague M Venkaiah Naidu in parliamentary affairs. It’s the same story for some other ministers in Modi’s Cabinet. Arun Jaitley straddles finance, corporate affairs and defence portfolios. His colleagues Nitin Gadkari, Venkaiah Naidu, Ravi Shankar Prasad, Nirmala Sitharaman, Jitendra Singh, to name a few, dabble with multiple portfolios.

Coalition compulsions forced Manmohan Singh to have a jumbo 72-member ministerial council: 28 cabinet ministers and 43 ministers of state. Junior ministers had no work to do. They became virtually redundant after the two-year ‘policy paralysis’ following a spate of scams. With a clear majority for the BJP, PM Modi had no such compulsions. His tight ship has 45 sailors. Pundits applauded him, saying decision-making will be faster and overheads lower. But is the leaner government turning out to be an emaciated one?

Undoubtedly, the PM has astounding leadership qualities. He has been the BJP’s star campaigner for the assembly polls in Maharastra and Haryana. However, when the pendulum swings so much in the opposite direction from the UPA-style of governance, with power resting on Modi and the PMO, it is likely that many ministries do not feel empowered or motivated to run their turf freely, with little margin to take their own decisions, make errors and learn. That could weaken the initiatives of most ministers except the boldest ones.

It is not clear how long even the few able ministers can be saddled with the burden of multiple heavy portfolios. Even so, many with a single or a set of related portfolios are demonstrating greater cohesion. After all, before the professed e-Kranti is rolled out through Digital India, there should be cohesion across departments. Such a need has already been identified in the electronic service delivery mode as in the case of e-business to demonstrate ease of doing business in India. Such baby steps have to take roots to strengthen practices in a cohesive government. Some ministers are demonstrating this.

There are weak spots as well. Vision and action seem to be missing in some inexperienced ministers. Either they are yet to find their feet or their results are not overtly visible, perhaps overshadowed by centralisation. And those with unconnected portfolios are clearly breathing heavy. These are signs of an emaciated government. Modi should have a full complement of able ministers to strengthen government and deliver on his promises before time runs out.

Running government through bureaucrats, bypassing ministers, will not work in the long run. There is no substitute for competent bureaucrats working under able ministers. Here, the cabinet secretary should chip in to pick the best people.

Many positions are vacant. The government hasn’t named the chief vigilance officer and the chief information commissioner. Many key posts in the finance ministry and public sector banks are yet to be filled.

The BJP promised to end tax terrorism. Yet, there is no full-time person to steer the international tax division. When the new chairperson of the Central Board of Direct Taxes takes charge next month, she may have only one member to assist her. Dedicated tax officers are yet to be appointed on the dispute resolution panels meant for faster resolution of international tax disputes. Such drift must end.

Work on the budget will start next month. Hopefully the government’s second budget will have more fiscal vision, reforms and tough decisions on subsidies. Jaitley will be hard-pressed for time. Juggling with the defence portfolio will be tough. Modi should name a full-time defence minister. He should divest ministers of their additional portfolios, especially the unrelated ones, as focus gets diffused. One more junior minister to assist Jaitley in finance is a good idea.

He has dismantled the Planning Commission. He should quickly put in place the think-tank to replace it. The government should merge the fertiliser ministry with agriculture to ensure the overall welfare for farmers, and ministries of consumers affairs and food, food processing should be departments under the agriculture ministry. The steel ministry, meant to run only state-owned companies, should be scrapped.

For a smart government, Modi needs more smart ministers.