Union Information & Broadcasting Minister Arun Jaitley on Monday told senior government officials that their “contrarian” opinions should not end up as “bombshell creating” views, but appear as part of an “honest decision-making process”. Advocating greater dissemination of information to the public, he also asked his ministerial colleagues to take the lead in being government’s communicators and asked bureaucrats to avoid any propaganda. Jaitley, addressing a gathering of around 100 senior government officials at a day-long workshop on ‘Streamlining Government Communication’, said: “There may be cases where people have an alternative view and they must be factored in. One, therefore, has to be extremely careful that even when contrarian views are expressed, they are expressed as a part of an honest decision-making process.” As many as 63 Joint Secretaries, 27 Private Secretaries and 19 Directors from various ministries, in addition to senior PIB officials, attended the workshop that was conducted with the objective of creating synergies between various ministries and the PIB for efficient and effective information dissemination. Stating that “we are now in a relatively open society and not much is secret in governance”, the I&B Minister said: “The use of language — the restraint that we exercise — even when there is a contrarian view, it should not be a bombshell-creating view, it should be a logical, possible view.” Watch me speak live in the Communication Workshop for officials — Arun Jaitley (@arunjaitley) February 2, 2015 Pointed out that nowadays the media is more interested in “the decision-making process” than just reporting the decisions, he warned the officials that at times journalists will be “more interested in reporting the alleged controversy in the decision-making process”. He also said that despite an open society, an “honest expression of opinion” could “create issues and embarrass” civil servants, but hastened to add that this was not to suggest that officers should not express themselves honestly. Jaitley also told officials that the information prepared by the government “should never be long-winded. should never be an essay” but instead “be crisp and should have a lot of facts and figures”. He added that a large section of the audience was starved of factual information. [related-post] “Your job is not propaganda. Your real job is that government-centric information has to be put out,” he said, stressing use of language that was easy to read and understand. Jaitley, who also holds the Finance portfolio, cautioned other ministers in the Union government against getting into a “shell”, thereby wasting opportunities to effectively disseminate information about programmes and policies of the government. Addressing the officials, MoS for I&B Rajyavardhan Rathore said, “In today’s time, those who win the war are the ones who tell a better story. And it’s all about that: perception.”
