Narendra Modi’s slogan of ‘Minimum Government, Maximum Governance’ may dash the hopes of several newly-elected BJP MPs nursing ministerial ambitions. It is also likely to curtail the fiefdoms of many top bureaucrats, while giving wider scope to others.
There are strong indications that Modi will not go for a ‘jumbo’ Cabinet, or, for that matter, a large bureaucracy. There are two reasons for that. The first is Modi’s minimalist philosophy. Second, since the BJP has got an absolute majority on its own, it will not be required to ‘accommodate’ any ally in order to rule.
The outgoing Government had as many as 71 ministers in the Council of Ministers, including the Prime Minister, 27 Cabinet Ministers, 11 Ministers of State with Independent Charge and 32 Ministers of State. Interestingly, the previous NDA Government under Atal Bihari Vajpayee started with a 78-member council, while UPA-I had 67 members.
There are three Ministries dealing with manufacturing: Heavy Industries and Public Enterprises Ministry for one section of manufacturing, Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises for another and Ministry of Commerce and Industry for industrial development and investment policy.
There is a possibility that all of them may get clubbed into a single Ministry of Industry, while Commerce could be renamed as the Ministry of Foreign Trade and get tagged to the Ministry of External Affairs.
Ministers of state Presently, Ministries such as Finance, External Affairs and Human Resources have two or more Ministers of State. The Modi Government may not continue with this practice and may appoint just one Minister of State in each Ministry. This will also help in addressing the complaints that most of the Ministers of State have no work to do.
The size of bureaucracy will also get trimmed. Currently, there are 82 Secretaries to the Government of India.
There is a chance that the number of Secretaries to the Central Government could also be reduced with merger of Ministries and Departments within the Ministry.