Intending to have greater control over the decision-making process in the government, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has asked his ministerial colleagues to send him all Cabinet proposals at least a week before they get listed on the agenda of Cabinet meetings.
To ensure that his directive on the timeline is adhered to by all ministries and departments, the Prime Minister had instructed Cabinet Secretary K.M. Chandrasekhar to communicate his decision to all sections of the government. Following this, Mr Chandrasekhar shot off letters, a copy of which is with this newspaper, to all secretaries of ministries and departments asking them to strictly adhere to the timeline, otherwise items sent by them would not be listed for the Union Cabinet’s consideration.
“I have strict instructions from the Prime Minister not to accept any Cabinet note after the scheduled time on the day prescribed. Hence, kindly ensure that we are not put in the embarrassing situation of not being in a position to accept any note received later,” Mr Chandrasekhar wrote in his letter.
The Cabinet Secretary also informed the secretaries that he had been directed by the Prime Minister to inform them that the list of items proposed for inclusion in the agenda of the Union Cabinet and its various committees “should be sent to his office well ahead of the date of the meetings”.
Sources said the move was necessitated as many ministries and departments kept sending requests till the last moment for inclusion in the Cabinet’s agenda. “In the absence of clarity on the timeline issue, at times last-minute inclusions were made in the agenda for Cabinet meetings and the Prime Minister could know about the items only during the meeting,” they said, adding that to avoid such situations in future, the Prime Minister had asked the Cabinet Secretary to make it mandatory for ministries and departments to send proposals “a week before the date of meeting”.
In his letter, the Cabinet Secretary further clarified that if the meeting of the Union Cabinet and its committees was advanced, the schedule for forwarding the note to the PMO would also be “correspondingly advanced”.