Prime minister Manmohan Singh is irked by the tardy submission of cabinet notes by ministers. In fact, some ministers walk in the notes right before a cabinet meet.

The PM has asked cabinet secretary K M Chandrasekhar to issue a circular to the secretaries to the government of India to be punctual with the notes and not to put the system in an embarassing position.

The cabinet secretary's letter to the ministries is reproduced below.

Dear Secretary,

As you are aware the extant instructions inter alia stipulate that only notes received seven working days before the meeting of the Cabinet/Cabinet committee will be circulated by the Cabinet Secretariat for the meeting, provided they meet with procedureal requirements.

In exceptional cases where there is extreme urgency notes received upto ten am on the Friday preceding the week in which the meeting is held where meetings are held on Thursday, are also considered.

The need to adhere to the time limits was reitereated vide my DO letter earlier. However, despite repeated instructions Cabinet Secretariat continues to receive requests for consideration of proposals well beyond the time limits specified.

Prime Minister has recently directed that the list of items proposed for inclusion in the agenda of the meetings of the Cabinet Cabinet committees should be sent to the PMO well ahead of the meeting.

In the light of the above directions the matter since been reviewed and in partial modification of the extant instructions, ithas been decided that procedurally correct notes received uptoone week prior to the date of the meeting will alone be considered for inclusion in the proposed agenda. To illustrate items received upto 1700 hours on the Tuesday preceding the week in which the meeting is held where meetings are held on Thursday will be included in the list to be sent to the PMo for inclusion in the agenda.

Similarly whenever meetings are scheduled on any day earlier than Thursday, the schedule for forwarding the note to the PMO will also be correspondingly advanced e.g. Tuesday 5 pm for a meeting scheduled for next Thursday.

You will appreciate that the objective of this revision in schedule is to provide clear seven days for PMO to process the notes for consideration of the Cabinet.You may like to instruct the officers concerned in your Ministry Department to ensure that this time limit is strictly adhered to . I have strict instructions from Prime Minister not to accept any notes after the scheduled time on the day prescribed. Hence kindly ensure that we are not put in the embarrassing situation of not being in a position to accept any note received later.

With regards,

KM CHANDRSEKHAR
Cabinet Secretary
13-10-2010

Attached below is a copy of the cabinet secretary's letter.