Ministers to learn lessons on official rules and procedures

The state government has constituted a Good governance consultative council with a view to get advice from it on several aspects of good governance. The first task assigned to the council is to help ministers particularly those who have become ministers first time, learn lessons on official rules and procedure and how to run their respective departments effectively, say official sources.

The council was constituted with an order dated February 13, 2019 issued by General administration department (GAD) to comprise three former chief ministers of Madhya Pradesh R Parasuram, Antony deSa and Basant Pratap Singh.

The mandate to the council is to work on ‘good governance, administrative reform, policy analysis and implementation and effective implementation of government and semi-government schemes’.

“The council members may be asked to give their suggestion on other matters too from time to time individually or collectively”, states the order.

As per official sources, ministers and high ranking officials of the government will take part in the ministers training programme, the first of the council activities.

As per official sources, chief minister Kamal Nath wants that the ministers need to be exposed to what the government procedures are as there are as many as 22 ministers in his cabinet who are ‘first timers’ as ministers and they are having problems in day to day working in their departments. Since all the ministers are enjoying cabinet rank there is no minister of state to learn from his senior minister as to how to discharge his duties.

The programme is most likely to take place on February 27, as per former chief secretary R Parasuram.

“We are still working on it. The details of the programme (training) will be clear in the next few days. There is still one fortnight left. The programme is most likely to take place on February 27”, said R Parasuram when contacted.

State BJP spokesperson Rahul Kothari said, “When nepotism is norm for selection of MLAs to induct them into cabinet the ministers are bound to face problems in running their departments. The ministers in the government need to undergo a comprehensive training. Training for a day or two cannot help them.”

First Published: Feb 14, 2019 19:55 IST