After the wait

It is hard to believe that last week's minor changes in the council of ministers had the long wait and build-up that they did. It is even harder to understand how the Prime Minister and the UPA chairperson can see this mini-reshuffle as solving any of the issues confronting this government in terms of performance shortfalls. To take the most obvious point first, in two different fora last week, both the finance minister and the deputy chairman of the Planning Commission confessed to lack of progress on the power front. Mr Chidambaram suggested that the Prime Minister himself was concerned, and Mr Ahluwalia gave vent to his frustration on the issue. But if the power ministry is not performing, and if this is the single most important infrastructure problem facing the country, why has the power minister not been replaced with a more purposeful substitute?

Then, the business of dual charge remains although the size of the council of ministers is not small. The new information and broadcasting minister is also in charge of parliamentary affairs, and this latter is certainly a full-time job when either House is in session; Jaipal Reddy holds on to culture in addition to his new charge of urban development; and of course Mr Aiyar continues to hold both petroleum and panchayati raj. There is an untidiness here that could easily have been avoided.

None of the other changes will set the Yamuna on fire. Santosh Mohan Dev in charge of public enterprises, for instance, does not signal a change of approach. Sunil Dutt, when he was alive, did precious little with his sport portfolio, and his successor is unlikely to change that. Keeping external affairs without a full-time occupant is understandable, given the commitment given to Mr Natwar Singh, and Sibu Soren too can hope to return to the government; but the net result is that Cabinet formation remains incomplete.

Since Indian prime ministers have virtually stopped holding press conferences and explaining their actions for the benefit of the general public, it is hard to understand the thinking behind this half-baked job, and no explanations are forthcoming other than the statement that a bigger exercise will be conducted soon. Without a date being mentioned, that promise has little meaning. The fact to be reckoned with is that more than a third of this government's effective life is over, since the last six to 12 months will be given over to pre-election posturing. So the window of time for this government to get its act together, is rapidly shortening. It is also noteworthy that while there had been speculation that some of the younger Congress MPs would be inducted into the government, that has not happened""and perhaps waits till Rahul Gandhi feels he is ready for ministerial office.

It is known that the Prime Minister is concerned about governance standards and about the ineffectiveness of some of his ministers. Indeed, he is said to have carried out a detailed performance review of each of his cabinet colleagues. That review has not led to any action in the reshuffle. Nor is there any sign of organisational change and innovation in order to make sure that the large spending programmes that this government is undertaking will result in positive "outcomes" that match the large "outlays" (to use the finance minister's new coinage). The short point is that, if this is all that was intended by way of a reshuffle, why bother at all?