Rail minister Suresh Prabhu delegates major tasks to his MoS

Railways minister Suresh Prabhu has delegated major administrative responsibilities to minister of state Manoj Sinha — who has been entrusted with all tasks except those that require “the specific approval of the Minister of Railways as per statutory requirements”.

Railways minister Suresh Prabhu has delegated major administrative responsibilities to minister of state Manoj Sinha — who has been entrusted with all tasks except those that require “the specific approval of the Minister of Railways as per statutory requirements”.

“I have always worked on the philosophy of empowering colleagues,” Prabhu told HT. “In my earlier terms as cabinet minister for environment and forests and chemicals and fertilisers, I had similarly entrusted then junior ministers — Babulal Marandi and Ramesh Bais — with higher responsibilities”, he said. “MoS usually complain about a lack of work. I believe in giving them too much work”.

An official circular of May 7 says the allocation of work to Sinha, who represents the Ghazipur constituency in eastern Uttar Pradesh, had been revised to include tasks including the approval of items for inclusion of rolling stock program costing between Rs 50 lakh and Rs 50 crore and approvals for postings at the Railway Board and the Research Design and Standards Organisation.

According to the circular, Sinha will deal with all cases where the approval of the Appointments Committee of Cabinet (ACC) has been obtained. Sinha has been entrusted with powers to write off railway losses ranging from Rs 10 lakh to Rs 10 crore and to review/follow-up all budgetary announcements. He will also review progress of all railway works including the task of building Road under Bridges and Road Over Bridges and railway colonies in all states, says the circular.