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New Page 162 Disgruntled Junior
Ministers open their heart to the PM: Complain of Lack of Work, Powerful Babus
PM
Manmohan Singh called junior ministers for a rare interaction. Within minutes,
however, he realised he was face to face with a band of unemployed workers. By
the end of the 45-minute session, he had promised to take up their case with the
Cabinet ministers who were in the line of fire.
The
interaction was a long sob story with MoS after MoS lamenting that their seniors
were not giving them enough work, that ‘babus’ were more powerful and that they
wanted more. The PM called junior ministers the energy pool, asking them to
focus on flagship schemes and use technology to improve governance.
The
juniors have been a perennially disgruntled lot, saddled with insufficient work
or unacceptable quality of it. This was true of both the NDA rule and UPA-1. The
story does not appear to have changed in UPA-2. The aggrieved ministers said
that as they do not go to the Planning Commission or attend Cabinet meetings,
they be allowed to give inputs in policy-making and, at least, be informed about
decisions.
The PM
looked grim when told that many ministers don’t even get to see official files.
Panabaka Lakshmi, it is learnt, said she had seen just one solitary file in
eight months. An exasperated MoS asked why could he not be trusted with a file.
The case of the Trinamool underlined an irony. E Ahmed and K H Muniappa, both
deputy to party chief Mamata Banerjee in the Rail Ministry expressed their
unhappiness.
(Source: The
Times of India dated 20.01.2010)
(Compiler’s Note:
The situation in various
States is no better. No wonder the pace of reforms and implementation is so
slow!)
