Several of the Empowered Group of Ministers (eGoMs) and Group of Ministers (GoMs), the legacy of the UPA Government are likely to be disbanded, as their feasibility is currently being gauged by the Cabinet Secretariat at a time when the Congress-led dispensation at the Centre is scheduled to end its innings later this week.
There were as on April 3, 2014, 24 functional GoMs and nine eGoMs which had been set up by the Government over a period of time, and according to highly placed sources, all the ministries have been sent a dossier by the Cabinet Secretariat, seeking their views on the feasibility of continuing with many of them. Also the ministries have been asked to give a report card on the performance of these ministerial panels.
On the basis of the feedback received from the ministries, sources said, a decision would be taken by the new dispensation – which assumes power at the Centre after May 16 (the day the lok Sabha polls results are to be announced) – on how many of these panels will continue to function. It was typical of the UPA regime (in both its tenures beginning from May 2004) to set up a ministerial panel whenever it was faced with a vexed issue. As a result of this, there were
GoMs on issues as varied as linking of rivers (which never took place during its time) to media-related matters as well as eGoMs on gas pricing, 3G spectrum auction, ultra-mega power projects, development of North-eastern region and even damage of standing crops.
Official sources told The Pioneer that ministries are likely to send their responses to Cabinet Secretariat’s dossier by May 12, and with a new Government likely to be in place latest by the end of this month, several of these panels may not be in existence by June.
Though it is being considered as a routine exercise, sources pointed out that by doing so, several unnecessarily created panels could be done away with and it will also help in giving the new Government a clear picture on what are the significant issues in hand, which it has to deal with on priority basis. While decisions of the GoMs were cleared by the Union Cabinet, the eGoMs were equivalent to the Cabinet and their decisions did not require any clearance from the Union Cabinet.
UPA was criticised for setting up so many GoMs as well as eGoMs on each and every issue, however official sources defended the move by claiming that since the Union Cabinet cannot take all the decisions on its own, there was a need to set up the panels which played a major role in easing the Government’s burden on decision making.While it remains to be seen as to whether the new Government will adopt the system of having such ministerial panels, as the BJP-led NDA did not have this model, sources pointed that since it has been in place for 10 years, at least some of the significant panels may remain in existence.