The Hindu Business Line : UPA's score-card

ONCE an academic, forever an academic, it would seem. How else does one explain the spell report-cards exercise on Dr Manmohan Singh? Ever since he took charge, he has geared up his office to keep scores on the performance of his Ministers, including, no doubt, the goals against their own side.

The completion of a year in office by himself and his Government has afforded him a golden opportunity to indulge his academic's bent. Undertaking the evaluation himself, he has flashed a score-card showing six out of ten, just a point above mediocrity. Of course, some of his Ministers have given a better account of themselves, but some others, with their poor showing, have pulled the overall score down.

Dr Singh, as a distinguished professional and a public figure of intellectual and personal integrity, has always got high ratings, coming close to ten, but he has to carry the can in a milieu to which he, for no fault of his, is a stranger.

To his credit, this has not deterred him from undertaking the evaluation and making it public. (It is another matter that Mr Gurudas Dasgupta of the CPI, taking part in a debate on a TV Channel, gave only two out of 10 to the UPA Government.)

In introducing the practice of report-card at all, Dr Singh has shown great daring, for at one time or another during his career as an officer of the Indian Economic Service, many of his current colleagues in the Cabinet had outranked him and even been his boss.

While they might try their best to conceal their chagrin at being passed over for the coveted slot to which they might have thought they had superior claims because of their longer stint in politics, they certainly would not relish the idea of being held accountable for delivering as per his expectations.

Dr Singh is said to have awarded 10 out of 10 to Ms Sonia Gandhi, in her capacity as the Congress President and the head of the UPA. Of all persons, he should have known that an over-generous valuation only encourages the person concerned to become complacent about his or her blemishes. However, without doubt, Ms Gandhi has been correct and supportive, and quite impressively, but unobtrusively, making up for the lack of political base for Dr Singh. I would give her eight out of 10 without hesitation.

B. S. Raghavan

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