Ministers, babus resist Govt’s downsizing plans

NEW DELHI, MARCH 6: The exercise launched by the Prime Minister's Office (PMO) to abolish at least four posts of secretaries in the Gover...

NEW DELHI, MARCH 6: The exercise launched by the Prime Minister’s Office (PMO) to abolish at least four posts of secretaries in the Government — to meet the April 1 deadline as committed to by Union Finance Minister Yashwant Sinha in his Budget speech — has run into rough weather with stiff resistance from ministers and the bureaucracy.

The PMO has estimated that there are nearly 120 secretaries and special secretaries (SSs) and 500 persons of the same rank or above serving with various statutory commissions, boards, committees and departments.A large number of posts were created thanks to various court orders or because a slot had to be found in Delhi for certain senior IAS officers. There were hardly any Officers on Special Duty either in the Cabinet secretariat or in the PMO until two decades ago. Now there are over a dozen officers of the rank of secretary.

The one ministry where there is no resistance is the Urban Development Ministry where Minister Ram Jethmalani has offered to surrender the postof a full secretary handling poverty alleviation and urban employment.He is understood to have conveyed to the PM that nothing worthwhile has been achieved by the department ever since it was created during the Congress’ rule. The post may now be merged into department of urban and rural employment which would remain with the Rural Development Ministry or a new ministry may be carved out. Another post of the rank of secretary proposed to be abolished is in the Health Ministry. The bureaucrat deals with the Indian System of medicine. The post was created during the Janata Party Government when Raj Narain was health minister. The PMO is not sure how far the Swadeshi lobby inside and outside the Government would react to the proposal to abolish the post.

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Another proposal is to abolish the post of one secretary in the ministry of food, consumer affairs and civil supplies which has four secretaries for food, sugar and edible oils, civil supplies and consumer affairs.The PMO is keen to abolish one post ofsecretary in the Industry ministry too. After liberalisation, the Government feels that there is no need for secretaries handling small-scale, heavy industries, food processing etc.Sources in the PMO said a decision would be taken after March 18 when the Parliament would be in recess as Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee is preoccupied with other important issues. The PMO is also not very happy with Yashwant Sinha making an announcement in his Budget speech abolishing the post of a special secretary in his ministry instead of a full secretary.

First it is not a policy announcement. Secondly, he surrendered the post of a special secretary (SS) dealing with external finance and amalgamated it with that of special secretary handling insurance. It is also said that the abolition of SS’s post does not lead to downsizing in a big way. The SS’s post was first created during the Indira Gandhi regime and later almost every ministry hit upon this novel way of sidelining senior but unwanted officials. The SS is afull secretary but without a department under him. He reports to the secretary in his ministry. It is estimated that an SS costs the Government about Rs 12 lakh a year.