After a tumultuous delay, the PM-designate is finally the PM.
Thank you for finally taking charge. Media has been bombarding us with PM news.
The past 10 days (16th -
26th May), the media space comprising 100 odd news channels, print
media, radio and others wasted some millions of man-hours over meaningless,
repetitive and often illogical coverage. Media was almost choking me with the
PM news. But on the brighter side, I am now aware of the minutest of details of our PM. Guess even Modi
would not be aware of his own news.
As if the Modi fever was not enough, media took over the ministry
formation to mysterious levels. Honestly speaking, I had a few good laughs on
the bizarre nature of the information being broadcasted on the likely portfolio
allotment. Till a few seconds before or rather even after the oath taking
ceremony was over, the media went berserk. The brouhaha on the ministry
allocation finally settled with Rashtrapati Bhavan releasing the list.
Lean is in: But is it healthy enough?
Bharitya Janata Party’s one of the campaign slogan “Minimum
Government, Maximum Governance” with a total of 45 ministers who took oath including
23 Cabinet Rank, 10 Ministers of State (Independent Charge) and 12 Ministers of
State. This is relatively a smaller team as compared to UPA-2 government which
had a total of 74 ministers, all inclusive. Still, this is not the smallest
cabinet, India has ever seen. Further, some of the ministries like Corporate
Affairs and Overseas Indian Affairs which were carved out of Finance and
External Affairs ministry, respectively by the UPA government are being brought
back to their original fold. The NDA government has either merged or handed
over more than one ministry to a minister. In all, Modi government has
restructured 17 ministries into seven for expediting the execution and
elimination of policy paralysis, if any. Key amongst these is Infrastructure
(Road Transport and Highways and Shipping and Ports) to be headed by Nitin
Gadkari and Energy (Coal, Power and Renewable Energy) to be led by Piyush Goyal
among others. The move is exciting but on the flip side can add to too much
concentration of power in few hands leading to dominance and lack of opinion on
decision making, which can be biased. For eg: In order to boost power
generation, the minister might make a move without carefully evaluating the
impact on Coal. Also, it can add to the workload of the minister in-charge and
lead to delays.
Young Blood!!!
The average age of Modi’s council of ministers is 57 years,
whereas it was 58 years in the UPA-2 government. Hardly any difference in the
average age, but there is a huge difference between the compositions of the
two. In UPA-2 government, a good number of ministers were in their late 60s,
Mid 70s and couple of them including the PM, 82 and Sis Ram Ola, 86 well above
80. The younger ones Sachin Pilot at 35 and Jyotiraditya Scindia at 42 were less
than half the age of the oldest one. The Modi cabinet has only three ministers
above 65 years of age (Najma Heptulah, 74, Kalraj Misra, 73 and Thaawar Chand Gehlot,
66). A total of 17 ministers are in the age group of 60-64 years, 16 are
between the age group of 51-60 years and nine of them within 50 years of age.
With the average age of majority of the country’s population being less than 30
years, the average age of the council is still twice that. But the positive
development here is that 90 per cent of ministers being within the age group of
41-64 years, which makes it only a generational gap, rather two-generation gap
in the previous government. And hence, I call it a younger cabinet.
To sum it up, though the government has started on a leaner note
but sustaining this leaner appearance will be tough ask as the cabinet is
likely to be expanded in the near future to relieve Arun Jaitley of Defense and
Ravi Shankar Prasad of Law and Justice and also to accommodate the sulking
party members and allies like Shiv Sena and also the representation from different
states and geographies. As far as young blood is concerned, it’s always
enthusiastic, energetic and restless to get over the task done, which is
positive news for a crawling economy. On the flip side, the lack of sufficient experience
and foresight, too much power, lack of fear and accountability due to a complete
mandate and a tearing hurry to turn things around can lead to a repeat of AAP
government in New Delhi. Though the possibility of this is bleak with Modi to
guide and remember, he is himself power hungry and would want to be PM for the
next 10-15 years at least.
To know more about the intelligence quotient and the suitability
with the allotted portfolio to this leaner and younger cabinet, please log on
to read my next blog.
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