Fixing accountability: PM keen to evaluate top ministries

For obvious political reasons,the four ministries—headed by Pranab Mukherjee,A K Antony,P Chidambaram and SM Krishna respectively—had been kept out of the purview of the PMES when it was conceived last September. The remaining 59 departments and ministries have already signed respective framework documents.

According to guidelines approved by the Cabinet Secretariat,the RFD is “essentially a record of understanding between a minister representing the people’s mandate,and the secretary of a department responsible for implementing this mandate”. The framework document,it says,will include success indicators and targets to measure progress in implementing agreed policies and programmes.

However,The Indian Express has learnt that at least one senior minister in the list of 59 departments differed with the methodology evolved to bring accountability at the highest level of governance. The minister,who did not wish to be named,recorded reservations on a separate file that was sent to the Prime Minister’s Office last month. “How can a minister sign an MoU with a secretary on the work needed to be done by the ministry. To my mind,the secretary would have no option but to accept the task set out by the minister,” the minister said.

Government sources concede that the mechanism has also led to some discomfort among the secretaries,who are wary of being singled out on performance platforms. What has further upset them is the fact that an ad hoc task force set up by Prime Minister Singh last month and comprising of retired bureaucrats,will be appraising their performance.

Those involved with the PMES project,however,contend that the system,an effective way to bring in accountability in governance,is already prevalent in several developed countries. “The system helps in prioritising tasks by giving weightage to them on a scale of 1 to 100. It further brings clarity over objectives of what needs to be done. However,if the ministries are unable to reach targets set at the beginning of the year,they will be graded accordingly,” said K Padmanabhaiah,former home secretary and one of the members of the ad hoc task force. Other members include former CEC B B Tandon,former TRAI chief Vinod Vaish,former secretary Ashok Chandra besides IIM professors.

As a pilot project,the 59 ministries had signed RFDs for the last quarter from January 1 to March 31,whose appraisals will be made at the end of April. “The exercise for the next year will start from April 1,” added Padmanabhaiah.