:: P.C. Alexander

Make better use of ministers of state

By Dr P.C. Alexander

The role of the minister of state is one of the least defined areas of administration at the Central government level. The Constitution (Article 74) provides for a council of ministers with the Prime Minister at the head to aid and advise the President, but does not stipulate that aid and advice are to be given only by the ministers with Cabinet rank. However, the convention in parliamentary democracies has been for the Prime Minister to allocate portfolios to ministers with Cabinet rank and appoint ministers of state to assist them. A practice has also come into vogue for the Prime Minister to entrust independent charge of portfolios to a few ministers of state without giving them Cabinet ranks. Such ministers attend meetings of the Cabinet when their subjects are considered by the Cabinet or whenever they are specially invited to attend meetings of the Cabinet.

The majority of ministers of state work in ministries under the overall responsibility of Cabinet ministers, but ever since independence most of these ministers have been having only a marginal role in the management of work in the ministry to which they have been appointed. The main reason for this is that the Prime Ministers have not been ensuring that the ministers of state get a reasonable share of work in the ministries. Even when persons with good qualifications and potential are inducted into certain ministries at the MOS level, the Prime Ministers have been leaving the allocation of work to the ministers of state entirely to the discretion of the Cabinet minister concerned. Some Prime Ministers have not even cared to know whether the Cabinet ministers have assigned any worthwhile work to their ministers of state.

This is not a new development, but has been going on ever since the post of MOS was created to assist Cabinet ministers. I recall that during T.T. Krishnamachari’s stewardship of the ministry of commerce and industry, where I was then working as a civil servant, the two ministers of state — D.P. Karmarkar and Nityanand Kanungo — had practically no work except certain parliamentary duties. Mr Krishnamachari was, of course, a great expert on commerce and industry, besides being an outstanding parliamentarian and the ministry was at its peak of efficiency during his time as Cabinet minister. Therefore, the work of the ministry had not suffered in any way, though the services of the ministers of state had remained grossly under-utilised. I also recall that during my days in the Prime Minister’s Office, Ghani Khan Choudhury who was Cabinet minister for the railways had practically sidelined his MOS Jaffer Sherif in the allocation of work. Mr Sherif who was not a political lightweight, was not willing to accept such a marginalisation and he sought the intervention of Prime Minister Indira Gandhi to secure a fair share of the work in the ministry for him.

The reverse has also been true in some of the ministries where certain ministers of state, who were politically influential, tried to function as de facto Cabinet ministers ignoring the authority of the Cabinet minister. Manubhai Shah, a highly competent and energetic MOS in the ministry of commerce and industry tried to pass final orders on the files even when the officers concerned had marked the files to Cabinet minister Lal Bahadur Shastri through the MOS. Shastriji had to issue special orders to make sure that all files which required approval at the Cabinet minister’s level were resubmitted to him even when the then MOS had returned such files with his orders. The unseemly state of relations between the Cabinet minister and the MOS came to public notice when Neelamoni Routray was appointed as Cabinet minister for environment, which was till then under the direct responsibility of the Prime Minister with Maneka Gandhi as MOS. Ms Maneka Gandhi had resented the appointment of a Cabinet minister over her and tried to run the ministry ignoring the authority of the Cabinet minister. This led to tensions between the two ministers and the media had given great publicity to the conflict between the Cabinet minister and the MOS. However, Mr Routray quickly asserted his authority as Cabinet minister and issued an office order reducing Ms Maneka Gandhi’s responsibilities to a few relatively unimportant items of work.

Brahmananda Reddy and later Buta Singh, who were home ministers, had a few politically powerful ministers of state working in their ministries. The ministers of state used to take decisions on matters relating to internal security etc. keeping the Cabinet ministers in the dark about the decisions. But these two Cabinet ministers chose to remain silent even when their own authority was undermined by their own ministers of state working .

Jawaharlal Nehru seems to have held the view that in a Cabinet system of government the Prime Minister should not interfere with the discretion of the Cabinet ministers regarding allocation of work to their ministers of state working. While Nehru would have had his own reasons for adopting this policy, it had led to a great deal of frustration among many ministers of state, particularly among ministers who had adequate qualifications and expertise to make important contributions to the work of the ministry. All Prime Ministers have been following the precedent left by Nehru on the issue of ministers of state and this had diluted the usefulness of the services of the ministers of state in the whole system of governance.

When the Prime Minister has the constitutional responsibility to allot portfolios among the Cabinet ministers, there is no reason why he should desist from issuing clear instructions to the Cabinet ministers as to what work should be handled at the MOS-level and which type of cases should be submitted to the Cabinet minister through the ministers of state. Such an instruction alone can help in giving the ministers of state a meaningful role in the working of the ministry.

Appointment of ministers of state to different ministries can be a good opportunity for the Prime Ministers to rectify the imbalances which often exist at the political level of administration in a parliamentary system of government. The essential requirement for a Cabinet minister is sound political judgment and leadership. Expertise in the subject assigned to his charge comes second to good political sense and leadership. Of course if a Cabinet minister combines in himself both political leadership and subject matter expertise, he will be a great asset to the government, but such a combination of qualifications may not always be easy to find. In such cases, the Prime Minister can rectify the deficiencies at the senior political levels of management by appointing ministers of state with the qualifications which may be lacking in the Cabinet minister. It is only through greater interest and involvement of the Prime Minister in the selection of ministers of state, their assignment to particular ministries based on suitability and in the allocation of work to them, that the trend of erosion of the institution of ministers of state can be arrested in today’s system of administration.

Dr P.C. Alexander was formerly governor of Maharashtra and Tamil Nadu