ASHOK TANDON, the former media advisor to Atal Bihari Vajpayee, wants Modi to galvanise all layers of government, not just the PMO
The year behind witnessed an action packed grueling schedule for Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who, riding the crest of a popular wave had swept the general elections, unseating the two-term UPA government of Dr. Manmohan Singh.
In his quest to come up to the high expectations of the people, who had posed their unwavering confidence in his leadership, Modi has tried to focus on changing the work culture, making his government responsive, pro-active, efficient and result-oriented.
Narendra Modi, perhaps, may have been able to bring about a paradigm shift in the style of functioning of PMO enhancing the performance of his establishment. But the same may not be true of many of his cabinet colleagues who still appear to be trying to come to terms with the reality that it is their responsibility to introduce administrative efficiency and implement the government’s policies and programmer in their respective departments, rather than look towards the PMO for guidance on everything.
This somehow seems to be hampering collective performance of the Modi government and the prime minister may not be very pleased with such a state of affairs in his team.
To instill confidence in the government apparatus and to boost the sagging morale of the bureaucracy, Prime Minister Modi called for doing away with old, obsolete, confusing and clashing rules, procedures and regulations. This is an arduous task since such a transformation in many cases requires constitutional amendments, which is a long drawn and cumbersome process, especially when a majority eludes the ruling NDA in the Rajya Sabha.
From the ramparts of the historic Red Fort in his Independence Day address to the nation, Modi had promised to make India a developed nation and a knowledge based society through all-inclusive growth, technology upgradation, innovation, good governance and people’s participation.
On the completion of one year in office, the Modi government has come out with a dossier listing his vision, his key administrative strategies, his flagship projects like Skill India, Digital India, Make in India, Clean India (Swatchh Bharat) by 2019 and affordable houses for all by 2022.
It is being argued on behalf of the government that an honest beginning has been made in the right earnest on all fronts of governance in the last one year and a lot more needs to be done for which people should give them some more time for the results to be visible on the ground.
Fair enough, one year is too short a period to judge any government. But the moot question is whether Prime Minister Modi has been able to motivate the government machinery at the central, state, district, municipal and Gram Panchayat levels to pursue his dream projects to logical conclusions and transform them into a public movement at the grass root level.
Take, for instance, the Swatchh Bharat Abhiyaan. Modi and his ministers launched the campaign on Gandhi Jayanti and its impact was certainly visible in the central government offices and in the New Delhi Municipal Committee (NDMC) area which is under the jurisdiction of the Union Home Ministry. But what about the rest of the union territory of Delhi. Sorry to say, even the BJP controlled three Municipal Corporations in Delhi have failed to make ‘Clean India by 2019’ a mass movement with public participation, especially in the resettlement colonies and Jhuggi Jhompri clusters which account for nearly 25% of the capital’s population.
Look at the record of the state governments on this issue. There is hardly any sign of the state governments — even the BJP governments in many states—adopting the Swatchh Bharat Abhiyaan with seriousness. Municipal corporations in major towns and local bodies and municipalities in sub-divisional cities and, to say the least, Gram Panchayats across the country, nowhere the Prime Minister’s call to usher in a Clean India by 2019 has been converted into people’s movement.
If this is the state of affairs, thanks to the federal structure of our constitution, which provides for primary health, sanitation, drinking water and rural infrastructure to be state subjects, I am afraid, many of Prime Minister Modi’s dream projects may end in tokenism.
Another of Modi’s flagship project — Namaami Gange –is yet to be put on the drawing board. The new ministry in charge of this dream project is still engaged in organizing seminars and workshops to prepare the blue print. However, some innovative schemes like Jan Dhan Yojna, Prime Minister Jeevan Jyoti Beema Yojna, Prime Minister Surksha Beema Yojna & Atal Pension Yojna have indeed percolated down to the poor and lower middle classes.
One area where the opposition is trying to corner the Prime Minister Modi is his diplomatic mission abroad. This is really uncalled for. It is an exercise in futility on the part of the opposition because this has been a standard practice since independence. Incidentally, Pt. Jawaharlal Nehru was known to be the most widely traveled prime minister whom opposition of his time would criticise for his penchant for foreign trips. Whenever there is a change in regime the foreign policy of the new dispensation becomes a subject matter of curiosity for the world powers interested in improving relations with India as it is now emerging as the fastest growing economies in the world. Also, the incumbent prime minister has to establish personal rapport with his counterparts and bilateral and multilateral visits provide such a platform. Practically every prime minister in the past has been doing so as a part of global diplomacy without any discordant note being made by the opposition.
It goes to the credit of Prime Minister Modi that the United Nations has adopted an India-sponsored resolution to observe June 21 as the International Yoga Day.
Overall, it can be safely concluded that Modi as prime minister has made a mark on the global scene with his highly successful and high profile visits which made the large Indian Diaspora proud and also established India a power to reckon with. But on the domestic front, Prime Minister Narendra Modi may have to cross many more hurdles to achieve his set targets and to usher in Achhe Din for all segments of the society which he promised during his election campaign last year.
