Stop working in silos, Modi tells secretaries in meeting

The Prime Minister met more than 85 senior bureaucrats on Saturday. According to an official present at the meeting, he asked secretaries to, ‘Stop thinking and working in isolation’.

New Delhi: Underlining that all ministries came together to combat the Covid-19 pandemic, Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Saturday exhorted secretaries of the government to “stop working in silos”, said officials familiar with the matter

Prime Minister Narendra Modi (ANI)

The prime minister met more than 85 senior bureaucrats on Saturday. According to an official present at the meeting, he asked secretaries to, “Stop thinking and working in isolation”. This was the Modi’s eighth meeting with government secretaries since 2014.

An official who did not want to be named also pointed out that apart from these large meetings with the top bureaucracy, the prime minister has also held seventeen meetings with sectoral groups of secretaries — panels tasked with preparing long-term goals and vision in entire sectors.

The 4-hour-long meeting on Saturday also assumed importance as it was held at the beginning of the new financial year with the country emerging from the Covid-19 pandemic.

The prime minister emphasised, according to two officials present in the meeting, that “the entire government must approach complex problems to tackle them”.

According to one of the officials mentioned above, Modi spoke at length about ‘Vision 2047’, which is the government’s roadmap for what the PM describes as ‘Amrit Kaal’ — the period between the 75th and the 100th anniversary of Independence. Last month, the prime minister has formed a group of secretaries to prepare the vision document in various sectors to be pursued during this ‘Amrit Kaal’.

Secretaries need to meet other ministries, stakeholders -- both inside and outside the government structure -- and all those involved in key focus areas before the vision documents are prepared, the prime minister said during the meeting, according to the official.

The official said the prime minister also laid emphasis on sharing the roadmap with not just states, but districts as well. “He pointed out that the states and the district administrations too, have a major role to play for implementing the vision documents for harnessing India’s potentials during the next 25 years,” said the second official mentioned above.

At least 20 new secretaries have been appointed in the past six months and it was their first such interaction with the prime minister.

An official pointed out that soon after Modi became the prime minister in 2014, he met all Union secretaries and sought ‘out-of-the-box’ ideas, promised to back them on all development plans and asked them to revisit the district of their first posting and give a report on progress, or lack of it, in those areas.

The last such meeting was held in September 2021.