NEW DELHI: The 'Chintan Shivir' of the entire council of ministers of the Narendra Modi government on Thursday discussed threadbare how to ensure 100 per cent penetration of all government schemes to the actual beneficiaries and connect with citizens effectively on the steps taken for their welfare.
For the second consecutive day, the ministers were divided into eight groups, and Prime Minister Narendra Modi interacted with each of them, besides addressing them together, sources aware of the deliberations said.
While there are 40-45 government welfare schemes, the focus of the meeting was on how to ensure 100 per cent penetration of all of them to the actual beneficiaries.
The 'Chintan Shivir' also discussed how to connect with citizens effectively on the welfare schemes and other development measures taken for their welfare.
Effective communication to the people is one area where the government will place stress in the coming days, the sources said.
The first day of the conclave of the ministers on Wednesday discussed a host of issues, including governance, reforms and outreach to women and youth on welfare and development schemes, the sources said.
During the two-day meeting, the ministers also discussed how to further improve the delivery mechanism of the government with close coordination among different ministries and departments, the sources said.
The prime minister is learnt to have taken feedback from the ministers and advised them on how to go about various aspects of the government.
The ministers discussed issues related to governance, reforms and outreach to women and youth on welfare and development schemes, they said.
The other issues that were deliberated by the ministers included 'Jan Vishwas Se Jan Aadhaar', reforms in all aspects of the government and priorities towards Viksit Bharat@2047.
The two-day brainstorming session has been called for stocktaking, improving coordination, preparing the future agenda, planning, reviewing the work underway on welfare schemes, and infrastructure projects, among others.
The Viksit Bharat exercise has been underway since 2021, with 10 sectoral groups of secretaries constituted to prepare short-term and long-term roadmaps to achieve the goal.
Vast stakeholder consultation was also done for this exercise.
Since then, there have been eight presentations and discussions before the council of ministers on different aspects of Viksit Bharat@2047.
The ongoing 'Chintan Shivir' takes this process forward, the sources said.
It brings together the work being done by groups of secretaries, ministries and departments, Cabinet Secretariat and NITI Aayog, including reforms, ease of living, reduction of compliances and other governance priorities.
Progress of government schemes, policy implementation, time management, inter-ministerial coordination and public service delivery are issues that figure in the agenda of the conclave.
The prime minister has been emphasising reforms in different aspects of government and has told his Cabinet colleagues in the past that addressing people's problems and ensuring ease of living should be the prime objectives of the government.
A similar exercise was conducted on October 21, 2021. At that time, the deliberations focused on governance and policymaking.
The exercise is aimed at helping ministers better understand the issues faced by the government.
In the recent past, several directions were issued to ministers and ministries, including having live dashboards of ministries' activities, reviewing progress and holding interactions with all staff members to get feedback and ideas.
Earlier this month, the prime minister asked all the ministers to work on making the official websites of ministries and departments more user-friendly.