PMO: Prime Minister’s Office Through the Years
By Himanshu Roy
Rupa Books, 192 pages, Rs 495
 
The Prime Minister’s Office (PMO) has long been a subject of debate, curiosity and scrutiny. Over the decades, it has evolved into a powerful institution within India’s broader administrative framework. But how did it come to wield such significant influence? This book, by a noted political scientist, traces the evolution of the PMO since India’s independence.

Through meticulous research, Himanshu Roy, a professor of political science at Jawaharlal Nehru University, examines various facets of the PMO, including its operations, bureaucracy and the expanding scope of its power. It unveils previously unknown details about the PMO’s organizational structure, origins, and the factors that have shaped its development.

Additionally, the book explores the impact of different prime ministers—from Jawaharlal Nehru to Narendra Modi—on the PMO. It also assesses how political developments have influenced the PMO, and vice versa.

Both general readers and scholars will find this book invaluable for understanding the PMO’s role and its broader implications for India’s governance, politics, and administration.

Here is an excerpt from the book:

It may be interesting to learn that Modi used to consult Lee Kuan Yew of Singapore in administrative matters, and was inspired by the reformist Sayajirao Gaekwad of the erstwhile princely state of Baroda. This has resulted in digital change and other innovations, forcing ministers and officers to be constantly at work, tracking the degree of development in each ministry and each state where central schemes and funds are involved. Such monitoring has led to the rapid execution of projects which have been languishing for years, resulting in the completion of projects on time. Ideas on digital platforms shared by citizens from across India are passed on to the different ministries to be analyzed.

Once its feasibility is approved, with the collated data from the ministry, it is sent to the PMO for approval. Once approved, these ideas become policies for application. Different policies which are applicable today are either premised on the Gujarat experience or were formulated in the past ten years.

Uday Mahurkar, a journalist and political analyst, provides graphic details of the functioning of the team. It collects and collates the data on the digital platform of the MyGov app, and shares it with the PMO and the ministries. The point to be noted here is that there are dedicated volunteers across India who assist the government. They are ‘researchers…analyzing the data as a service to the nation.’ More interesting is the fact that the PM himself suggested that the citizens on this app assess the functioning of his government in an online poll. And the number of citizens voting affirmatively for the policies online have been substantively large—larger than the numbers engaged by any single media house for any survey conducted by them at different times.

Such critical public appraisal has put him on a high moral pedestal that makes him unamenable to extraneous influences of caste, religion or region. He chooses his officers purely on the basis of merit, whether they are technology savvy, and possession of innovative ideas, integrity and efficiency. The way the bureaucracy was functioning for itself in the states—and in the preceding central governments through different kinds of lobbies—needed strong measures of correction and monitoring.

Bringing in the OSDs and PS to the ministers under the purview of the ACC was one such early measure taken by Modi to check lobbying. His directive to his top officers in the PMO and the cabinet secretariat was to identify upright officers without any extraneous considerations. The traditional method of selecting an officer based on his Annual Confidential Report (ACR) was no longer valid, as 90 per cent of the officers had a very high grade of appraisal, which had become the norm after 2008.

To overcome it, a new real-time rating was constructed based on due diligence, learnt from the method adopted by the New Zealand government. Also, learning from Indian corporates like the TATA Group and countries like the USA, the UK and others, four main criteria were fixed upon. One was the integrity and efficiency of the officers, verified by peer groups, batchmates, seniors and juniors. The other requirements would be functional skills, ‘domain expertise’ and ‘behavioural competencies’. ‘Once an officer is cleared through this process, his or her name enters the retention pool…next the name is sent to the Central Services Board (CSB) to match his job profile… Here the secretaries of the departments are also involved. Once the name is finalized, the CSB sends it to the ACC which clears it within 24 hours.’ The process is applicable to different services, which has resulted in the vertical and lateral mobility of many non-IAS officers to different posts. A similar kind of due diligence in appointments is being followed in other services such as banks, the public sector, and paramilitary/police organizations. Many of the top-ranking posts in such organizations, earlier occupied by IAS/IPS officers, are now occupied by in-house officers of the concerned organizations. It has generated a sense of belonging and commitment towards their organizations. Plus, it has also de-clogged opportunities for vertical mobility for in-house subordinate officers. The process, however, is yet to percolate deeply and widely. The coalition politics in Modi’s third term may slow down the application.

Modi looks at officers and the administration as a facilitator, a delivery mechanism; the different ministries and departments and their wings need to coordinate for efficient functioning; for that, he conducts regular meetings with the heads of the administration, from the ministers and mayors of municipalities to the district magistrates (DMs) and secretaries. In this process, he has broken many protocols. The different ministries and departments, in the name of autonomy, were earlier not coordinating with each other, resulting in delays in their work or their coordination meetings being just paperwork. Actual delivery was lacking. Now it’s the kind of teamwork that transcends ministerial/departmental boundaries, leading to a quantum change in the performance of the administration while strictly following official procedures. Many times, to make the process smooth, the government has laid down new procedures of selection, coordination and functioning. One may find it interesting to note that ministers in state governments, particularly of opposition parties, write to the PM to expedite the completion of stalled projects in their states.

The different ministries have been advised to share the development works of their ministries with the public on social media, which can be tracked using MyGov. Training sessions have been organized to explain the procedures to the ministries and their officials. Even their rating score was initiated on a weekly basis. NITI Aayog plays an equally important role in policy inputs, drafting, recommending and advising the government.

Structural and institutional reforms can be suggested to make administration transparent and efficient in delivery. They can also create new opportunities by opening up new vistas to focus on empowering citizens.

[The excerpt reproduced with the permission of the publishers.]