Officers can't jot Cabinet notes! Karnataka Chief Secretary can't believe it

Bengaluru: In over six decades of administration the state bureaucracy, it appears, has not learnt how to prepare a Cabinet note for the government’s weekly Cabinet meetings.

Filled with grammatical errors, the notes are not properly formated either and at times seem like a petition from the public to the government. Fed up with the tardiness, Chief Secretary Aravind Jadhav has now issued a circular to all
department heads, Additional Chief Secretaries, Principal Secretaries, and Additional Secretaries on how to prepare Cabinet notes based on guidelines framed by the Union Government in 2014.

Instructing the departments to prepare the notes both in Kannada and English, Mr Jadhav has asked their heads to ensure that they are grammatically correct. “At times, I end up correcting the grammatical errors in the cabinet notes,'' he pointed out.

His circular says while the cabinet note should have a brief of the subject in three or four sentences, another note should specify the justification of a proposal presented, and a third, explain its financial implications to the government.

“If there were any inter-ministerial meetings regarding the issue, their proceedings should also be specified. Finally, the minister's approval for the note should be part of the appendix,” it adds, warning that cabinet notes, which do not follow these guidelines will not be entertained.

Currently, there is always confusion as although the Cabinet agenda is prepared the day previous to the meeting, additional requests come in from various ministers’ offices, which are tagged on as additional agenda at the last minute.

And even during the meetings, ministers tend to request incorporation of one or two subjects, despite having no supporting documents to present to the Cabinet, say sources.