When it had
come to setting the coal sector right, Narendra Modi’s diagnosis that the
Ministries existed in silos and these needed to be broken, was bang on. So, as he
got the Secretaries to come together in informal settings to discuss a variety
of issues, it worked. Secretaries got together and found solutions to many
vexed issues that confronted the government. These informal Groups of
Secretaries made presentations before the PM in the presence of all Cabinet
colleagues. There was positive energy all around.
It was a period when honesty and efficiency, and not pliability and allegiance, were the prime criterion for selection to senior positions in the government.
The
government got moving and delivered in the aforementioned environment. But
then, what went wrong?
Anil Swarup
who has served as the head of the Project Monitoring Group (PMG), which is
currently under the Prime Minister’s Office, in this article, analyses the
handling, rather mishandling of the current Covid crises by the government and
much more…
