Modi to expand government at lower level

New Delhi: Adopting the principle of “minimum government and maximum governance”, PM-designate Narendra Modi spent the past four days finalising his dream team, that will prove to be “organic”, with fewer ministers.

Mr Modi has worked out a “smart governance” formula in which “top layers of government will be downsized and there would be expansion at the grassroots level,” said a release from Gujarat Bhavan, where Mr Modi has been holding a series of meetings with the BJP top brass and NDA leaders.

The release said that Mr Modi has tried “in a rational manner to club like-minded departments in the ministry formation in such way to convert entity of an assembled ministry to organic entity”.
The focus of the Modi government will be “integrated and inter-connected nature of governance”, it said, adding, “It is a good beginning in transforming the entity of assembled ministries to organic ministries. It will bring more coordination among different departments. It will be more effective and bring speed.”

However, with less than 24 hours to go before his government is sworn in on Monday, a cloak of secrecy continued to shroud the list that Mr Modi has drawn up of those likely to be members of his Cabinet. While those due to get important ministries are learnt to have been sounded out by Sunday evening.

It is almost certain that senior leaders like Arun Jaitley, Sushma Swaraj, Nitin Gadkari and M. Venkaiah Naidu are getting Cabinet berths. BJP chief Rajnath Singh may get the home ministry. Mr Jaitley, it was learnt, may get finance or external affairs, while Mrs Swaraj can be given defence or external affairs.

As the ministries are being merged and reorganised, Mr Gadkari could get the infrastructure portfolio, which will be an umbrella ministry overseeing ministries like the highways, surface transport and urban development.