This may be asking for the moon, but can the country get a smaller government—starting with the council of ministers? The danger today is of quite the opposite; on the one hand, the alliance partners are trying to grab more ministerial berths, and on the other the Congress is said to be trying to separate ministries (like food from agriculture) in order to give smaller portfolios to the alliance partners. Amidst this political foreplay, someone should be thinking of how many ministers the country really needs. The damage was done a few years ago, when the norm was set that the number of ministers should not exceed 10 per cent of the membership of both Houses, which imposes a cap of 78 (the outgoing Singh government had 77). With 262 members for the pre-poll alliance partners in the Lok Sabha, and about 80 in the Rajya Sabha, these 78 seats can be distributed among 342 members. In other words, every fourth or fifth member of the ruling alliance can hope to become a minister—which is the origin of the ratio of one ministership for every four MPs. Surely, this is excessive. The norm two or three decades ago was that the number of ministers should not exceed 10 per cent of the Lok Sabha—which meant a cap of 54.
It is not difficult to re-introduce this lower cap. Does the country really need separate ministers to deal with heavy industries and public enterprises, small-scale industry, agro and rural industries, food processing industries, textiles, steel, and chemicals and fertiliser-in some cases with a cabinet minister as well as a minister of state, as in steel? Isn’t one minister for industry good enough for the lot, with two or three ministers of state-especially since having a multiplicity of ministries has achieved little of note? Or, why do we need a ministry of tribal affairs, another for minority affairs, and a third for social justice and empowerment, and yet another for women and child development? Why can’t the ministry for overseas Indians be a part of the ministry of external affairs? And, as Rajiv Gandhi did, have one minister for transport, with ministers of state assisting him for railways, roads, aviation, etc? Why do we need separate ministers for power, petroleum and natural gas, new and renewable sources of energy and coal, when one energy czar with assistance from three ministers of state should do the trick? Rationalising these ministries will save perhaps 10 berths at the levels of cabinet minister and minister of state with independent charge. Knocking off another 10 or 15 can be done with similar ease, and it is doubtful whether there will be any drop in efficiency. Some ministries should be scrapped entirely—no one can recall what good the ministry of programme implementation has done, and there is no need for a minister of state for statistics (which used to be a part of the planning portfolio).
Pruning the list and re-organising the ministries would yield two other benefits. First, only the serious political heavyweights would figure as cabinet ministers—which is as it should be. And second, it would make for a happier bunch of ministers of state. Today, at least half the ministers of state complain that their senior colleagues give them no work of any consequence. The bald fact is that there isn’t enough work for 29 cabinet ministers, 40 ministers of state, and another eight ministers of state with independent charge.
