PM deletes GOMs, EGOMs for fast decisions
Source: The Sangai Express / Agencies

New Delhi, May 31 2014 : Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Saturday decided to abolish all the 30 ministerial groups to bring more accountability and faster decision making among his colleagues who head the various ministries and de-partments.

There are currently nine empowered groups of ministers (EGoMs) and 21 groups of ministers (GoMs), which were set up to take decisions on various matters before bringing them for the Cabinet's consideration.

"This would expedite the process of decision making and usher in greater accountability in the system," an official statement from the Prime Minister's Office said.

"The ministries and departments will now process the issues pending before the EGoMs and GoMs and take appropriate decisions at the level of ministries and departments itself" .

According to an official announcement, the government has empowered the ministries and departments to take decisions pending with GoMs and EGoMs.

There were nine empowered groups of ministers (EGOMs) and 21 groups of ministers (GOMs) in operation.

They were to take decisions on various matters -- and several of them on matters seen as tricky -- before coming up before the cabinet for consideration.

In a way, this decision also poses greater accountability on Modi himself as he will now have to adjudicate matters where there are differences among cabinet colleagues, rather than let a panel of colleagues deliberate on them first.

The idea of such ministerial panels first cropped up and was implemented during the regime of National Democratic Alliance (NDA) under Atal Bihari Vajpayee.

More then were added under Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's United Progressive (UPA) Alliance government.

Since neither the Bharatiya Janata Pary (BJP) nor the Congress party had the numbers to form governments of their own and relied on their allies, these ministerial groups were to let coalition leaders deliberate key matters before bringing them to the cabinet.

Pranab Mukherjee, now India's president, P Chidambaram and AK Antony of the Congress party and Sharad Pawar of the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) led the maximum of these ministerial groups -- that at one point had swelled to as many as 60 .

The EGOMs, in particular, were even bestowed with the authority to take decisions and a subsequent discussion and approval by any cabinet committee, presided over by the prime minister, was a mere formality.

The subjects of the EGOMs included effective management of drought, pricing of natural gas and ultra mega power projects, while those of the GOMs included strategy for water management, national war memorial and administrative reforms.

Many of them were dismantled after they served their purpose and new ones were added.

Both EGoM as well as the GoM get appointed under the Government of India's Transaction of Business Rules 1961, which at para 6 (4) provides that 'Ad hoc Committees of Ministers including Group of Ministers may be appointed by the Cabinet, the Standing Committees of the Cabinet or by the Prime Minister for investigating and reporting to the Cabinet on such matters as may be specified, and, if so authorised by the Cabinet, Standing Committees of the Cabinet or the Prime Minister, for taking decisions on such matters' .

Rule 6(6) further provides that 'any decision taken by a Standing or Ad hoc Committee may be reviewed by the Cabinet'.

Therefore decisions in a matter taken by EGoM remain subject to review by the Cabinet at the latter's discretion.

Former Minister and Congress spokesperson Manish Tewari said that the system of GoMs and EGMos was meant to operate as a single window clearance on issues related to various ministries with the objective of expediting policy making.

Narendra Modi earlier met BJP general secretaries and discussed organisational matters apart from measures to strengthen the party ahead of assembly elections in some key states.

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