By Sunil Garodia
First publised on 2021-11-15 14:38:01
After a series of Chintan Shivirs (brainstorming sessions) each of which lasted five hours or more, Prime Minister Modi today divided 77 ministers of his cabinet into 8 groups with each group headed by a senior Union minister. These groups will focus on developing technology-based resources, creating a pool of professionals for recruiting in their teams and other similar initiatives to be adopted in the offices of all ministers to bring more transparency and further improve the efficiency of the NDA government.
Although India has always seen cabinet ministers formed into groups called Groups of Ministers (GoM), the work assigned to these groups in the past was different from what has been assigned this time. The very fact that the groups are to strive for developing technology-based resources and think of recruiting professionals in their team means that the government is trying to focus on delivery. The failure of governance in India is not due to paucity of good schemes. It is mostly due to unsuccessful or faulty delivery of the benefits of these schemes to the intended beneficiaries due to various reasons. If the government makes use of technology, existing or emerging, and employs professionals, young or old, to help implement its schemes and makes sure it reaches the intended beneficiaries without any leakages, it will win the battle.
In this respect, Prime Minister Modi's initiative gets full marks. But a lot depends on how these groups function. Often, it is seen that a privileged few are allowed to share their plans and make presentations before these groups and only a certain section of the experts and professionals are called up. If that happens now too, the very purpose of the exercise will be defeated. Hence, it is expected that the groups will not discriminate among people based on ideology or play favourites. The country needs to get the best technology and the best experts and professionals to help in governance. These groups should strive to discover them and put them to use, as per the Prime Minister's vision.