Govt wants ministries to work in tandem

The Cabinet Secretariat says ministries work in silos without knowing what other arms of the government are doing and should work together to achieve targets across different ministries.

Updated on: Mar 10, 2013, 22:42:13 IST

Hindustan Times | By Chetan Chauhan, New Delhi

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There may be little correlation between sports and governance but the cabinet secretariat has found one to encourage the central ministries to work as a team.

Like joint effort helps a relay team win and enjoy a victory lap, the central ministries should work together to achieve targets of the government spread across different ministries, the Cabinet Secretariat has said in the 2013-14 annual performance appraisal for ministries called result framework document (RFD).

There is a common belief that most Central government ministries work in silos not knowing what the other arm of the government is doing.

To illustrate the point, the secretariat gave the instance of power generation for which five ministries — power, coal, environment and forest, railways and heavy industries — are responsible but the target is not met because of individualistic approach of the ministries.

"In order to achieve the desired result, it is necessary to work as a team and not as individuals," the secretariat said in its RFD document.

To inculcate the culture of team work, the secretariat for the first time has made the Planning Commission’s target for the 12th five-year-plan as team targets for the ministries. The panel’s target will be performance indicator for all ministries involved in achieving the listed goal.

It would mean, for example, that power generation target will be there for five ministries. Not achieving the target will result in all the given ministries losing points. The loss of points will depend on the weight for the team target in the respective RFDs, the secretariat said.

The logic put forth by the secretariat for team targets was in sporting terms.

It said that there is no “consolation in a team member scoring a double century and the team ending up losing the match” and added that all team members must “ensure (like relay race runners) that the entire chain works efficiently”.

The secretariat also said alignment of RFD objectives with 12th Plan objectives would initiate the process of updating departmental strategies for team work and better results.

"It would also enable the government to measure the expected impact the department/ministry on national welfare," the secretariat said, adding that the department/ministry serves the purpose for which they were created in the first place.

The UPA government in its second innings had introduced RFD for ministries and its results get reflected in the annual performance appraisal of bureaucrats working in the central government.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Chetan Chauhan
Chetan Chauhan is the National Affairs Editor looking into all aspects of news and features from across India. A Chevening scholar with over three decades of experience in reporting and news management, Chetan has extensively covered all important aspects of the social sector, political economy, environment and climate change nationally and internationally. He did a journalism course at the Reuters Institute of Journalism in Oxford and Digital Media training at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore. He started as a reporter with The Statesman in 1996 and joined the Hindustan Times in 2000 in the metro bureau covering environment, crime and Delhi politics. He covered hot local news, from the Jessica Lal murder case to the rebellion of Delhi Congress MLAs against then Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit, to the replacement of toxic vehicle fuel with cleaner compressed natural gas (CNG) in the national capital. Some of his stories on air pollution became part of the Supreme Court’s landmark MC Mehta versus Government of India case in the National Capital Region (NCR), forcing the government to take corrective measures. As part of the national political bureau since 2004, he covered important central sectors such as environment, education, social justice, labour, rural development, water resources, renewable energy, agriculture, broadcasting and the Planning Commission for more than a decade producing several exclusive and investigative breaking stories. His specialisation is the environment, having covered at least a dozen United Nations global conferences on climate change, biodiversity and wildlife including climate summits in Paris, Copenhagen and Bali. He also covered India’s two five-year plans ---11th and 12th and reported on drafting and execution of right based laws such as Right to Education, Right to Information and rural job guarantee law, MG-NREGA, now being introduced in new format as VG-RAM-G Act. He has in-depth knowledge of social sector issues. He was one of the first to report on tigers vanishing from Sariska and Panna wildlife reserves in 2004 and 2008, respectively, leading to the setting up of the National Tiger Conservation Authority (NTCA) and the introduction of stringent penal provisions for poaching. He has written extensively on the rising human-animal conflict in India and the degradation of India’s biodiversity hotspots because of mining and other activities. Since 2004, Chetan has covered Parliament comprehensively and participated in training on the nuanced coverage of Parliament proceedings. He has travelled extensively across India to cover national and provincial elections since 1998, especially in the Hindi heartland states, considered India’s road to power. He writes a regular column for Hindustan Times, Ecostani, on important national politics, economy, Himalayan ecology and environmental issues. His other responsibilities include providing inputs for edits and edit page articles for the publication, apart from managing news flow from across India.Read More

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