Spending powers

In the finance ministry that he heads, P Chidambaram appears to harbour no doubts about his powers. At least if a recent letter from a joint secretary in the finance ministry to all government departments is anything to go by. Advising them to follow strictly the restrictions on expenditure in the last quarter of the current financial year, the joint secretary wrote that compliance of the instructions was being monitored at the “highest level in the Ministry of Finance”. Ordinarily, the expenditure secretary would be responsible for such monitoring. But the use of the singular version of “level” in the letter has raised the question: is the situation so grim that Chidambaram himself is keeping a regular tab on all spendings?