Modi divides ministers into 8 groups, designates tasks for better governance

The Centre has divided all the 77 Union ministers into eight groups, and tasked these teams to hire young professionals, seek advice from retiring officials and develop technology-based resources among other initiatives to bring more transparency and efficiency in governance.

Each group comprises nine to 10 ministers with a Union minister being the group’s coordinator. Union ministers including Hardeep Singh Puri, Narendra Singh Tomar, Piyush Goyal, Dharmendra Pradhan, Smriti Irani and Anurag Thakur are some of the coordinators.

Reports said the classification was done following marathon Chintan Shivirs or brainstorming sessions of the cabinet under the chairmanship of Prime Minister Narendra Modi. Five such sessions were conducted where the topics of personal efficiency, focused implementation, ministry functioning and stakeholder engagement, party coordination and effective communication and Parliamentary practices were discussed.

Reports said the last brainstorming sessions were also attended by Lok Sabha speaker Om Birla and Rajya Sabha chairperson M Venkaiah Naidu.

Sources said the latest initiative is aimed not only to improve efficiency and delivery of the central government but also focuses on overall improvement in government by encouraging ministers to take a more hands-on approach towards tasks.

Apart from hiring professionals and ensuring required technology, the teams have been asked to develop a portal for each minister’s office to post regular updates on the Centre’s flagship schemes and policies, a dashboard for monitoring decisions made by the respective ministers and a system to schedule meetings and managing correspondence.

Also read: Rahul Gandhi rebukes Modi’s China policy, says ‘Mr 56” is scared’

The teams have also been tasked with creating profiles of all states, districts and ministries as well as begin stakeholder engagement programmes.

Specific tasks have also been cut out for some groups. For instance, one of the groups have been asked to set up a mechanism to create a team of at least three young professionals armed with research and communication skills, while another group has been assigned to create a website that could take feedback of retiring employees.