Is someone listening? PMO reminder to ministries

The PMO seems to think that various ministries don’t listen to it when it comes to their little battles. For the third time in a year, ...

The PMO seems to think that various ministries don’t listen to it when it comes to their little battles. For the third time in a year, PM Manmohan Singh has reminded Cabinet colleagues that they should refer inter-ministerial issues to his office before fighting over them.

On May 12, P C Rawal, secretary (coordination) in the Cabinet Secretariat, wrote to government departments: ‘‘The Prime Minister has observed that the instructions regarding forwarding a copy of the draft note to the PMO at the time of inter-ministerial consultations are at times not being followed by ministries/departments. I am, therefore, desired to once again bring to your notice that, in all cases, a copy of the draft note should invariably be forwarded to the PMO at the time of inter-ministerial consultations and the comments of the PMO should be awaited for 15 days.’’

This is the third such directive in a year. Similar instructions were first sent to ministries last September 27 and March 31 this year.

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Rawal’s letter says while the comments of the PMO ‘‘should be taken into account while finalising the (Cabinet) note but no reference be made to this effect in the note for consideration of the Cabinet/Cabinet committees.’’

The idea is that the PMO would work behind the scenes to iron out the differences between the ministries before inter-ministerial meetings.

The Cabinet Secretariat would keep record of all such notes. ‘‘The fact of having consulted the PMO must be stated in the forwarding letter sent to the Cabinet Secretariat,’’ Rawal’s letter says.

There have been enough inter-ministerial squabbles to embarrass the UPA: Commerce and Finance on trade policy; Finance and Petroleum on petrol price hike; Heavy Industries and Finance on disinvestment; Civil Aviation and Finance on Air-India’s Boeing deal.