Modi wants bureaucrats to spend time in field, be innovative

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While pushing for innovative ideas from senior bureaucrats in the ministries, the Prime Minister Narendra Modi has said that a certain budget of each department should be allocated for innovation. PM Modi has made a set of observations in a recent meeting with the senior officials of the ministries.

The PM has also observed that officers have lost field focus and asked that officers may be mandated to spend at least 5-6 days in a month in the field.

The PM has also asked to develop in-house capabilities in the ministries and government departments to do away with consultants. Recruiting consultants for different works or projects under government schemes is quite a general practice in various ministries and departments.

Analysis of set of observations made by the PM suggested that his focus is on quick delivery of projects in the country and all the hurdles coming in the way of this be removed. The set of observations have been made by the PM in a recent meeting with senior officers of various ministries.

Keeping in view the delay in implementation of some flagship projects in the country, the PM has observed, “Speed of decision making is critical-officers should constantly endeavour to reduce delays in processes.” The observation has been made in respect of all the central ministries.

Speaking about the need of innovations in government working, the PM has observed that innovations need not be big always and small changes can bring in big impact. “An award to innovation among officers…Innovation needs system flexibility. 1 % of each department may be considered to be allocated for innovation,” the PM observed.

Focusing on performance, the PMO has also noted that there is need to move from process based administration to performance based administration and each officer should be given clear task with freedom and responsibility.

The PM has also talked about team work as he observed, “Need to reach out to everyone in the team. Break the habit of working in silos. Knowledge sharing is necessary and helps better decision making.”

Speaking further on works, the PMO has observed, “Need to have a positive attitude towards work-behind every file are people. Whatever you do or not do, impacts the entire country. Need to aware of this always.”

It has also been said that successful experiments in governance should be documented and developed into a framework for replication across the country and institutions of repute may be engaged in this regard.

Apart from this, the PM has also asked for simplification of rules in government working. “Simplification of rules needs immediate attention—annual validation of all government circulars and orders is a must.”

The PMO has also asked the ministries to focus more on ‘soft copies’ as it has said that “hard copies of government orders or guidelines should be an exception.”

Speaking about coordination among seniors and juniors in the government departments, the PMO has observed, “there is need for communication between seniors and juniors. Need for a department vision and not just project plans. Need to align all employees of the organization to the vision of the organization.”