After rolling the dice in favour of Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI) chairman Nandan Nilekani in his running feud with the home ministry, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has now instructed all the ministries and departments to get prior approval of his adviser S. Ramadorai, the vice-chairman of IT giant TCS, on proposals relating to skill development before placing for the Union Cabinet’s consideration.
Mr Ramadorai happens to be third corporate honcho after Sam Pitroda from Silicon Valley and Mr Nilekani from Infosys. Mr Pitroda is spearheading the UPA-II’s ambitious national optical fibre network (NOFN) project, which is aimed at providing last mile broadband connectivity to each of the panchayats in the country, whereas Mr Nilekani has been tasked to generate unique “Aadhaar” number to all Indian residents.
Incidentally, all of them have been tasked to complete their respective jobs by the end of 2013, as General Elections are due by the middle of 2014.
In a first of its kind, the Cabinet secretariat (under instruction from the Prime Minister) in an order, a copy of which is with this newspaper, has asked all the ministries and departments to get the prior approval of Mr Ramadorai before sending any proposal on skill development to the Union Cabinet for its consideration.
Recently, Mr Ramadorai has been appointed as adviser to the Prime Minister on the PM’s National Council on Skill Development in the rank of Cabinet minister. Interestingly, both Mr Pitroda and Mr Nilekani too have Cabinet ranks.
Explaining the reason for such an instruction, the order said, “As the government intends giving skill development a major push during the 12th Plan (2012-17), there is an inescapable need to ensure the availability of the knowledge of best practices across sectors and high level of expertise with all the ministries and departments.”
It further added that it has been decided that ministries and departments “invariably consult” the office of Mr Ramadorai in respect of “all matters pertaining to skill development”.
This should be done while formulating the proposals for consideration of Union Cabinet, it said.