Commerce ministry split plan gets cold reception

The proposal to bifurcate the commerce department, with one section handling multilateral and bilateral agreements and the other territorial and commodity matters, has not gone down well with the Udyog Bhawan.

"It is already a department for international trade since multilateral and bilateral agreements are now more prominent with end of the licencing era," an official said. A proposal to model the commerce ministry on the lines of the US set-up had already been moved, sources said.

In its vision document released on Thursday, the National Democratic Alliance had proposed the creation of a ministry for international trade to deal with global trade.

Sources said the US model might be difficult to replicate in India since the US trade representative was handpicked by the President.

"In India, the chief negotiator would be answerable to Parliament and it would be very difficult to find people who just tracked multilateral issues," said a former government official involved with multilateral negotiations in the past.

Commerce ministry officials indicated that the proposal must have come from some former bureaucrats who wanted to play a role in trade negotiations, given the high profile nature of the job.

In the past, trade negotiations have also been a sore point between administrative and foreign service officials, with the former complaining of being left out of the entire process.

The details of the restructuring plan are not known. However, it is widely expected that the size of the ministry will be increased unlike the present system where a special secretary or an additional secretary heads the trade policy division and is assisted by two joint secretaries.

Officials often complain of the ministry being short-staffed.