Niti Aayog struggles to give reports

It was with the idea of bringing transformative changes in various areas of administration that Prime Minister Narendra Modi had set up eight panels headed by secretaries of key Central ministries to come up with innovative ideas on good governance. However, Niti Aayog — which had been tasked with the duty of seeking a status report from 70-odd Central departments on implementation of recommendations of the said panels — went into a tizzy as the inputs ran into hundreds of pages and it became a challenge for the government think-tank to streamline them into a cohesive report to be sent to the Prime Minister’s Office.

The PMO is learnt to have sought a detailed but concise status report now from the Niti Aayog on how and to what extent all Central ministries have implemented the suggestions made by the panels of secretaries.

While the eight groups had sent their recommendations to the PMO in January on subjects ranging from good governance, to smart budgeting, energy efficiency, to education, agriculture and health sectors, the Niti Aayog had been tasked with seeking status reports of all the Central ministries on how much of these suggestions had been incorporated by them till August.

The status report was to be prepared in the form of a presentation which the Niti Aayog CEO, Amitabh Kant, was to give before Mr Modi on August 26 in the meeting of the council of ministers.

Sources privy to the development told this newspaper that the Niti Aayog realised how urgently “good governance” is needed when it received updated status reports from all 70 ministries running into reams of pages on the basis of which the presentation was to be prepared.

Niti Aayog officials struggled to turn the responses from all ministries into a concise and palatable report and prepare it in time before the August 26 meeting. Though Mr Kant did make a presentation to the PM, sources said that the PMO has sought a detailed status report from the think-tank.

Sources further said that since the PMO was keen to see the progress of each and every department till the month of August, it became quite unwieldy to cut out the flab from the responses sent by the ministries.