Narendra Modi Government’s decision to abolish 30 committees of Groups of Ministers (GoMs) and Empowered Groups of Ministers (EGoMs) set up by the Manmohan Singh regime to finalise decisions on a range of issues, has restored the supremacy of the Cabinet in the parliamentary system of Government. The committees, mostly headed by the former Finance Minister P Chidambaram and former Defence Minister AK Antony, actually blocked decision-making and ensured that timely decisions were not taken on a range of issues. They brought the UPA regime to a grinding halt and contributed to its ignominious exit.
On Saturday, May 31, just two days after his 10-point agenda to his colleagues to prepare a list of issues to prioritise in the first 100 days in office, the Prime Minister abolished all EGoMs and GoMs to empower the concerned ministries and departments to decide policy on matters falling within their respective domains, and also ensure greater accountability. Any differences or difficulties are to be brought directly to the notice of the Prime Minister Office and Cabinet Secretariat for timely resolution.
The prominent EGoMs thus phased out were concerned with the Central PSU share sale price; gas pricing and commercial use; ultra mega power projects; mass rapid transit system; 3G spectrum; drought; northeast development; strategic and power projects in Arunachal Pradesh; and damage to standing croups.
The disbanded GoMs were looking at issues pertaining to water management; administrative reforms; civil aviation; Bhopal gas disaster; Prasar Bharati; media; open market sale of wheat; Amritsar-Kolkata industrial corridor; and minimum wages.
The move took the Congress by surprise and exposed the deep freeze on decision-making within the party that not only dominated the UPA coalition, but virtually dictated all policy and decisions to the then Prime Minister Manmohan Singh. The fact that EGoMs and GoMs were set up to take decisions on crucial sectors where the regime was long accused of policy paralysis but failed to deliver despite being headed by Sonia Gandhi’s trusted lieutenants, is a blistering indictment of the UPA chairperson.
After Sanjaya Baru’s telling expose, The Accidental Prime Minister, there can be no doubt about who called the shots in the regime. Sonia Gandhi clearly had some inexplicable calculation behind ensuring the failure of Manmohan Singh in his second tenure. Perhaps her coterie believed this could help project Congress vice president Rahul Gandhi as a decisive leader (hence the drama about tearing up the Ordinance saving convicted law-makers) before the nation. But these calculations failed to take into account the positive messages of hope and delivery made by the then Gujarat Chief Minister during his campaign, and the cumulative disgust for the Congress and UPA as the economy hurtled towards the abyss.
Former I&B Minister and Congress spokesperson Manish Tewari defended the GoMs and EgoMs, saying that they were set up to provide a single-window clearance on issues related to various Ministries. Claiming that the GoMs and EGoMs were set up mainly because most issues were complex and had inter-ministerial connotations and implications, he said that the purpose of the inter-ministerial group was to “bring to the table in a cohesive manner expertise across different ministries”. That may have been the stated objective, but the fact is that quite the opposite happened.
Under UPA II, as many as 78 GoMs and 16 EGoMs were set up; 9 EGoMs and 21 GoMs were still functional when the Congress lost the election. These have now been officially scrapped. Most GoMs set up by the UPA during its 10-year tenure hardly met and very few delivered decisions. A senior member of the outgoing regime clarified that that the committees were only informal arrangements made by the UPA in key areas or where inter-ministerial inputs were required, and that these bodies were co-terminus with the life of outgoing government. Hence their dissolution was only natural.
Others, however, point out that the whole practice of setting up such committees has been done away with and a new work culture inaugurated in which decision-making has been made wholly accountable. Under the new system, decisions can neither be deferred, nor can concerned ministries or departments hide behind such committees. Every decision will be traceable.
The decision follows the Modi Government’s attempt to redesign portfolios around ‘organic clusters’ for faster and cohesive functioning, such as joining coal and renewable energy with power, culture with tourism, rural development with panchayati raj, and drinking water and sanitation. The move is widely perceived as a fulfillment of Narendra Modi’s promise to deliver ‘minimum government and maximum governance’ by making an outright attack on the UPA’s favourite piece of red tape. Observers feel that the new regime wants to be seen to have hit the ground running, and that some major decisions would be taken by the time of the first Budget session itself.
http://www.niticentral.com/2014/06/02/abolition-of-egoms-restores-cabinet-supremacy-229786.html