PM and Ministers Rated

by Indra

May 25, 2006

On the completion of the first year in chair last year, Manmohan Singh rated himself at 6 on a scale of 10. He has not done that till date for his performance of the last two years, as he celebrates the second anniversary on May 22, with a dinner with UPA team. However, others such as IK Gujral in one of the article in Hindustan Times, ranks him high at 7.5 or so. Mr. Gujaral's ranking refers to Mr. Singh's foreign policy initiatives.

During the morning walk today, I happened to ask Mr. Krishnan, a very senior retired executive of a MNC. He rates our PM at 3.5. The Prime who expects and requests his ministers to keep him in picture on what all they do, can't be rated any better. And then I thought of taking another opinion from Mr. Gehlot, a superintendent engineer in PWD. As per Mr. Gehlot, Man Mohan Singh should get 60% marks.

I feel some of the new initiatives of the government have been great, but you hardly see any difference on the ground. Media hardly provides the factual figures of development. No one gives the MW of power generation capacity added or kms of road built. Why can't that be speeded up, if a better infrastructure can push up our GDP growth by 1.5-2 percent (making 10% GDP growth feasible)? Further, PM with his huge administrative experience could have certainly done some revolutionary reforms on red tapes of bureaucracy, where the time gap between the cabinet approval and start of a road project or the construction of a power plant takes a minimum of 25 months.

Again, a number of media channels and magazines have tried to rank the ministers in the present cabinet. As per CNN-IBN and IBNlive.com poll, Chidambaram is the best member of the Man Mohan Singh Ministry. At the Number Two position is Civil Aviation Minister Praful Patel. There is a tie at the number three position with both IT Minister Dayanidhi Maran and Railway Minister Lalu Yadav.

There is one more ranking of minister done by 'India Today' too in its May 29,2006 issue's cover story-The Best and the Worst'. Praful Patel is on the top followed by Lalu Yadav, Chidambaram, Dayanidhi Maran, and Kamal Nath. Have you been to New Delhi Railway Station recently? Why can't this one station in capital be brought to a world-class level to serve as a benchmark for other important stations in the country? Have you visited the website of railway reservation? Can it give you the best route planning if you want to cover Dwarka, Hampi, Rameshawaram, and Tirupati? Have you seen a q-free reservation center? Why can't this be possible?

Surprisingly, out of power from Bihar all ministers belonging to Lalu's party are doing a better job. In 'India Today' rankings, three of them are in the first ten. Again, 6 of the top ten are the ministers belonging to the parties other than Congress.

Perhaps the question by CNN-IBN- "Who are the best Ministers in the UPA Government?" would have been "Who are the worst ministers who must be dropped in the interest of the country?" I propose this as it is essential to know the opinion about the bad performers and they must be replaced to bring in efficiency and speed of execution. How can our country afford ministers such as TR Balu (21 in 'India Today' ranking for 39 ministers), minister responsible for shipping, road transport and highway or Shanker Sinh Vaghela (32), the one responsible for textile for years with no significant contributions? Unfortunately, with political pressures and considerations being very high, the prime Minister has failed to replace someone for non-performance.

Should an international agency be used to have the annual performance rankings of the ministers for deciding the necessary reshuffle by PM to avoid any bickering among them?

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