PM and FM: Wonder how they ever get any work done

There’s been a flurry of meetings in the Prime Minister’s Office (PMO) ever since the Congress Working Committee (CWC) gave the Manmohan Singh government a kick in the pants and asked it get the economy out of the ditch. Earlier this week, the PM set targets for infrastructure projects in power, railways, roads, shipping, civil aviation and coal for 2012-13. [caption id=“attachment_337981” align=“alignleft” width=“380” caption=“Did you do your homework? Manmohan Singh with Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee. Reuters”]  [/caption] While the measures have met with the usual cynicism – most analysts would like to see action rather than merely listen to announcements - what is less known is how the government’s top two executives, the PM and the finance minister, have contrasting responsibilities. The PM has too little on his plate, and the FM too much. Little wonder the FM is dreaming of the quietitude of Rashtrapati Bhawan. Let’s begin with Pranab Mukherjee. As the government’s most active political crisis-buster, he heads as many as 25 groups of ministers (GoMs) or empowered groups of ministers (eGoMs). Clearly, Pranab-da’s days must stretch to eternity. But it’s not as bad as it looks. According to a report in Business Standard, nearly half his GoMs and eGoMs are not heading anywhere (Read the full report here). Consider the following:

• A GoM to find a suitable location for a National War Memorial. Set up three years ago, there’s no sign anything happening here. What’s Pranab doing here? Maybe he could carry this over to his Rashtrapati Bhawan to-do list.
• A GoM to suggest changes in laws for honour killing. It was formed in July 2010, but Khap Panchayats are very much around, but not the law to rein them in. Surely, the law minister should be heading this GoM.
• A GoM on paid news, again heading nowhere. Isn’t that the I&B minister’s area?

One wonders why a finance minister should be seen anywhere near these GoMs. Then, consider this. Mukherjee heads another eGoM on Ratnagiri Gas and Power. Remember, Dabhol? Enron? Ratnagiri is the final avatar of that Enron-created power plant in Maharashtra that went sour. Set up in 2005, it has apparently finished its job of recommending whatever it had to, but the GoM continues to remain in existence. Clearly, even if he is not overly burdened by heading several moribund GoMs and eGoMs, the sheer effort of trying to know which meeting he is in any day should make Pranab-da’s head spin. Rashtrapati Bhawan will be a piece of cake for him. Next, let’s consider the PM himself. Just one example will do. While the PM’s Office under Principal Secretary Pulok Chatterjee has been a blur of activity since last October (read here ), leaving the PM himself with a lower load, Manmohan Singh, it seems, hasn’t been too excited by the committee set up in 2008 to push for land reforms. According to a report in The Economic Times, the PM-headed National Land Reforms Council has not met even once since it was set up in 2008. It seems the committee’s first meeting was scheduled for October 2011, but the PM decided to push off for three consecutive foreign trips and that was that. No land reforms. Of course, this council is right out of Rip Van Winkle. Land reforms were at the top of the agenda soon after independence, but few states were serious about it even then. Now, when the problem is fragmentation of land, land reforms make even less sense, if the idea is to break up land into smaller parcels and allot them to the landless and tribals – as seems to be the intent of the Council. That the PM should be heading a group that never meets and is probably an anachronism given today’s agricultural challenges tells us more about his priorities and that of his party boss.