PM Narendra Modi hits upon unique ID way to monitor projects

If the UPA government had launched the unique identification (UID) numbers, Prime Minister Narendra Modi is using the concept to monitor the work he allocates to secretaries of all ministries.

Assignment of a UID to projects will help Modi monitor the status of a project on an hourly basis, with secretaries updating even the minutest details on a real-time basis. PMO sources told dna that the prime minister begins his day with his iPad, tracking files.

For example, a work assigned to the department of chemicals and fertilisers related to the proper co-ordination of fertiliser movement. It was assigned a code of 24/4. On August 28, the department uploaded the progress twice – at 12:57 pm and 7:43 pm -- saying a meeting was held in the ministry of railways and listed names of those who attended it.

In another update the same day, the secretary notified a study was completed and details have been intimated to the Cabinet Secretary. The issue the prime minister raised this time was that of wagons returning
empty after unloading fertilisers.

The secretary, in his uploaded message, replied that a pilot scheme to earn revenue from empty wagons has been advertised for and the response is yet to be received. Secretaries have been asked to upload even the impediments coming their way and the cause of delay.

While some inside the government resent the system, calling it authoritarian and not attuned to the cabinet system of governance, another section says "since the prime minister is monitoring the work on an hourly basis, it is difficult for ministers to have their own way and dictate terms to the bureaucracy."

In another departure from the past, the Prime Minister has stopped circulating the agenda of cabinet meetings to ministers 2-3 days in advance. The agenda is circulated just hours before the meeting to plug leaks, expedite decision-making and avoid dissent on important policy issues.

Responding to criticism that it gives little time for ministers and secretaries to prepare, PMO sources say they expect the secretaries to be fully prepared the day they submit a note to the cabinet secretariat.

Departments submit notes to the secretariat every Thursday, so that it is placed in the cabinet next Wednesday. Those who have worked with Modi in Gujarat say his office, at times, was not even circulating the cabinet agenda and ministers would know of it only when they arrived for the meeting.

For senior officials and their staff, there has been no weekends since Modi assumed power in Delhi three months ago.

"Earlier I would hold a cabinet note for a month, but now I have to clear it in three days. In the last one month, I have cleared at least 10 cabinet notes," says an officer.

The excuse that the concerned minister is not in Delhi won't cut ice now. Officials have been told to take necessary approvals on e-mail, and, if the minister is still inaccessible, send the note without his signature. 

Though the pressure is telling, there is a sense of empowerment in the bureaucracy as secretaries brief and remain in touch with the Prime Minister directly, though at the cost of by-passing their ministers.