Finance ministry in for major restructuring

The Ministry of Finance is poised for a major personnel restructuring in the coming days. This will however be in the nature of an internal ...

The Ministry of Finance is poised for a major personnel restructuring in the coming days. This will however be in the nature of an internal restructuring and will not involve addition of departments/commissions from other ministries. The basic structure of the ministry will remain untouched in the revamp.

A finance ministry official said, 8220;the requirements have changed with liberalisation and to deal with policy issues the finmin requires specialised cells. The exercise will involve identifying operational officers8230;dep secys/directors/jt secys who will be transferred to man these positions.8221; According to sources, the reorganisation will be finalised before finance secretary Dr S. Narayan retires on June 30.

Finance ministry8217;s different departments have been asked to send their reports on personnel to Vijay Kelkar, advisor to the Finance Minister. Certain rules related to transfers which have become out of sync will also be changed through administrative orders. It may be mentioned in this context that the ministry is also in the midst of finalising the transfer policy for officers in the revenue department. Finmin officials are quick to point out that the process was set into motion before the 8216;Gingee Ramachandran episode8217; happened and is part of the overall restructuring process.

The finmin media cell is also tipped to undergo changes and will be given a separate budget 8212;Rs 15 crore8212;and more officers. The cell will no longer be a press release distribution centre but will be designed to be a communications department of the government.

Singh had stressed the need for reorganisation of the ministry in the Budget. He had indicated enlarging the role of the department of economic affairs. DEA is likely to have separate divisions dealing with economic policy and analysis, capital markets, budget, banking, trade aid concerns and infrastructure and co-ordination. The DEA has 15 divisions, while the expenditure department has six wings including the comptroller general of accounts and cost accounts branch. The department of revenue includes the boards of direct and indirect taxes besides the different investigative bodies. Besides these, DCA and FIPB are part of the ministry.