PMO gets back personnel department

Vora retains job, Saikia's ADB posting cancelled

The process of moving the Department of Personnel and Training (DoPT) back to the Prime Minister's Office (PMO) begun yesterday, indicating that one of the new government's top priorities was to restore administrative institutions to their time-honoured place.

This means that Minister of Personnel Suresh Pachouri will now be a Minister of State in the PMO.

The DoPT was moved out of the PMO and made a part of the home ministry when former Home Minister LK Advani was elevated to the post of Deputy Prime Minister. Then, a number of bureaucrats had criticised the move and said it effectively undermined the PMO.

The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) continued to remain under the PMO during the National Democratic Alliance regime mainly because of resistance from then Principal Secretary Brajesh Mishra.

However, bureaucrats had advised the PMO to move this to the home ministry as well. This would have meant the restoration of the situation that had existed before then Prime Minister Indira Gandhi moved the CBI to the PMO in 1971.

For the new government, this is a crucial decision because the control of transfers and postings of IAS officers will now be done by the PMO.

Although the Appointments Committee of the Cabinet (ACC) is a consultative body that has the Prime Minister, the Home Minister and the departmental minister on it, it is the PMO that has to take a call on controversial appointments. The continuance of the DoPT in the home ministry would have created a third pole of power in the government.

With this process in place, bureaucratic chopping and changing in the new government began today with the cancellation of orders of Joint Secretary (PMO) Ashok Saikia's posting to the Asian Development Bank (ADB) and the finance ministry asking for a fresh roster of officials.

The vacancy will arise in mid-July with the return of former Finance Secretary Piyush Mankad, who is currently India's representative to the ADB. Postings of other officials in the PMO had been cancelled earlier.

In the interest of continuity, the government today decided to retain former Home Secretary NN Vora's services as interlocutor for talks with Kashmiri militant groups. Thus, acknowledging in this appointment they agreed with the previous government's priorities.

Simultaneously, Jyotindra Nath Dixit, former foreign secretary and High Commissioner to Pakistan and Sri Lanka, was appointed National Security Adviser (NSA), replacing former Principal Secretary Brajesh Mishra, who was the NSA.

Dixit was given the rank of a Minister of State and will be housed in the Prime Minister's Office.

The question bureaucrats in the Minister of External Affairs are asking themselves is how Dixit will define his role as NSA vis a vis the Ministry of External Affairs.

As NSA in the previous government, Brajesh Mishra was running a strategic dialogue with eight or nine countries including European countries like Germany and France and Asian countries like China.

Mishra was also designated the government's Special Representative to talk to China on border issues, elevating border talks from the bureaucratic to the political level.

Mishra's moves meant that it was the NSA who was handling a substantial part of the work that fell in the domain of the Ministry of External Affairs.

Whether Dixit will be as high profile, or whether much of the work will devolve on the MEA as was institutionally done, remains to be seen.

Dixit is already getting ready to handle talks with Pakistan on nuclear Confidence Building Measures and talks with the United States on space and related issues in Bangalore next month. One of his immediate tasks will be to take over the National Security Advisory Board (NSAB) and revamp its membership.