PM Modi Pulls Up Bureaucrats Over Delay In Decision Making, Asks Officials To Gear Up

Drawing a red line on the ‘slow pace and outdated vision’ affecting India’s growth trajectory for decades, Prime Minister Narendra Modi asked bureaucrats to shun their laid back attitude and delayed decision making.

The warning comes at a time when the government has set an ambitious goal of becoming a five-trillion dollar economy by 2024-25, but the Indian economy is struggling with the slowest growth rate in six years.

PM Modi alerted the bureaucrats of being held accountable for non-completion of the assigned tasks, The Times Of India reported. He expressed his displeasure on the matter through a tweet on Wednesday, November 6.

While reviewing key infra projects, I emphasised on two things:

Speedy completion of pending development works.

Upgrading infrastructure where needed.

Slow pace and outdated vision adversely impacted our growth trajectory for decades. Such attitudes will NOT be tolerated now.

— Narendra Modi (@narendramodi) November 6, 2019

He tweeted on the matter after chairing a review of the infrastructure projects with all secretaries in the Union government and state chief secretaries, sending a strong message that his government will not entertain any complacency in terms of reforms.

The Prime Minister reviewed nine projects worth Rs 61,000 crores in 16 states during PRAGATI meeting on Wednesday. PRAGATI stands for Pro-Active Governance and Timely Implementation, wherein the Prime Minister holds monthly meetings with secretaries of the Union government and chief secretaries of all state governments to review the progress of projects under implementation. The meetings are held via video conference to keep track of the hundreds of projects worth trillions of rupees.

“While reviewing key infra projects, I emphasised on two things: speedy completion of pending development works and upgrading infrastructure where needed,” Modi said.

The NDA government aims at investing around $1.5 trillion over the next five years in the infrastructure sector. Since the NDA government joined office in its previous term in May 2014, there have been a reshuffling of top levels of the bureaucracy, including secretary-level appointments. Several IAS and IPS officers have been prematurely retired based on their performance appraisals and service records.

PM Modi directed bureaucrats that the long-delayed projects should be completed soon by the state governments and regular progress reports must be sent to his office.

Modi also discussed the creation of an intra-state transmission system in eight renewable energy-rich states, Tamil Nadu, Rajasthan, Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, Himachal Pradesh, Gujarat, Maharashtra and Madhya Pradesh and discussed difficulties faced by solar and wind power companies in starting new projects, including challenges to land acquisition.

“Prime Minister directed that based on e-models of demand aggregation, Ministry of Road, Transport & Highways and Ministry of Agriculture & Farmers’ Welfare should work together on a new start-up model of logistics support, particularly with regard to the transfer of agricultural products from one state to another. He said that all the states must come together and use a common, integrated platform for smooth operation,” according to an official statement.

After PM Modi’s remarks, the ministries are now reworking on the presentations that sectoral Group of Secretaries will present before the Prime Minister in the next couple of weeks.

In a similar incident, PM Modi, while reviewing the progress of the government’s initiative of “Ek Bharat, Shreshta Bharat” on October 12, Modi had told the secretaries that they had ruined his first five years and he won’t permit them to do it again.

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