The Arvind Kejriwal Government has decided that if a department fails to react for five days when asked to comment over the movement of a file or any proposal, it will be construed as "No Comments".
Top sources told The Pioneer the Delhi Cabinet on Thursday approved a proposal for fixing of time limit for comments on Cabinet proposals circulated for inter departmental consultation. The proposal was mooted by the Development Minister Gopal Rai at the Cabinet meeting. Due to delay in inter departmental comments, several Cabinet proposals reported to have stuck in the various departments.
"Now within five working days, the department's comment should come on draft Cabinet proposal. If the department concerned does not give comment, then it would be presumed to be as 'no comment to offer' on the proposal," said the sources.
There are a number of proposals reported to have been stuck in various departments for comment. It is learnt that Secretaries and Principal Secretaries of major departments are preferred not to comment on the draft proposal due to unknown reasons.
For instance, the Delhi Assembly's Winter session is beginning from November 18 and not a single Bill has been approved till date as several Bills are pending for inter departmental comments.
To speed up the process, the AAP Government had had issued a circular a few months ago in this regard.
"The department concerned will prepare a Cabinet note and would get the same approved from the Minister in-charge. After approval of the Minister, it will be sent by the Secretary of the department for inter-departmental consultation. For any Cabinet note, consultation with the Finance, Planning and the law departments is mandatory. Depending on the subject matter of the Cabinet note, consultation may be required from other departments. After the inter-departmental consultation, the views of other departments will be incorporated and the same would be sent to the Chief Minister through the Minister concerned for the approval of the same for being brought before the Council of Ministers," the circular said.