The Yogi Adityanath government, pursuing the agenda of administrative reforms, is all set to bring down the number of government departments from the present 97 to 57 with the objective to give smart and efficient governance in Uttar Pradesh.
The move comes a year-and-a-half after the government constituted a committee to suggest administrative reforms at the behest of NITI Aayog and is now planning to act on the recommendations of the panel.
The proposal to trim the number of departments from the existing 97 has been cleared at the top political level and is likely to be put up before the state cabinet for consideration early next week.
The state government, in January 2018, had set up a 6-member committee, headed by senior IAS officer Sanjay Agarwal who has now moved to Centre as Secretary, Agriculture and Cooperation.
The Narendra Modi government has already implemented a major administrative reforms programme with lateral entry of 12 officers at the joint secretary level and induction of nearly 400 officers at director level in various ministries of the Union government is under consideration.
The UP Assembly’s monsoon session is about to start on July 18 and the government hopes a decision on the merger of departments will come before that. New ministers for various departments will only be decided after the final decision on pruning the number of department is taken by the government,
The committee, while recommending that the number of departments be reduced, has not suggested any changes in structure and functioning of 31 major departments that include Finance, Excise, Law and Justice, Secretariat Administration. The committee has recommended creation of posts of three new commissioners — education, health and revenue commissioners — to oversee functioning of major departments’ working with the same sectors. Will the state cabinet agree with this recommendation?
Accordingly, the departments of Family Welfare, AYUSH, Medical Education, Maternal and Child Welfare will be merged with Health department. Basic Education, Secondary Education, Higher Education, Technical Education and Professional Education will be merged with the Education department.
Sugarcane department, Drought Relief department, Agriculture Research, Food Processing department will be merged with the Agriculture department. Stamp and Registration department, Weights and Measurement department will be merged with Revenue department.
Apart from this, eyeing 2022 state assembly elections, some prominent faces in BJP state unit may get additional responsibilities, while some may be entrusted with other duties at the organisational level.
A BJP spokesperson said, “Some ministers have become MPs during the recent elections. So, other MLAs will be made ministers. This will happen at the right time, we all are waiting for it.”
