NEW DELHI: The day after the Modi Cabinet was sworn in, a Minister of State with independent charge on his way home to Assam to celebrate got the shock of his life when he landed at Guwahati. He got a phone call from his office saying the Prime Minister had been looking for him. Ministers are being summoned to 7 Race Course Road for 7am meetings, and the day starts early for the Narendra Modi government. After the fall of the moribund Manmohan Singh regime, within a fortnight Modi has established a gruelling work culture that has left both political colleagues and bureaucrats without much leisure or leave. On the first full day on May 27, PMO staff used to Manmohan’s easy ways got a taste of the new work culture that Modi, who has been Gujarat CM for over 12 years, will bring to the government.
Earlier used to reaching work at 9am, the freshly instructed PMO staff at South Block watched as the nation's CEO, an early bird—who after his morning yoga—came into work a full one-hour ahead at 8am. That day he had a punishing schedule of bilateral meets with eight heads of SAARC nations, apart from a 45-minute visit to his predecessor Manmohan Singh's home. Ministries have issued orders to babus that work starts at 9am to 5.30pm, which may soon extend to 6. Daily meetings start at 9.15 am. Even some ministers get to work before 9am.
Signaling that efficiency would be rewarded, one of the first moves by the government was to bring in Nripendra Misra, a 1967-batch retired IAS officer of the UP cadre, as his principal secretary in the PMO, by amending the TRAI Act through an ordinance.
Since then, Modi has inducted another half-a-dozen officers into the PMO and shunted out a few others. While controversial officers like Additional Secretary Shatrughna Singh, named in the SC for reviewing the CBI’s status report on coal scam in 2013, were moved out, Modi brought in former IB chief Ajit Doval as the National Security Adviser and Dr P K Mishra, a former Gujarat IAS officer, as additional principal secretary.
During his first week as PM, Modi invited SAARC leaders, held short bilateral talks with each of them the next day, took phone calls from leaders of key nations, including US's Barrack Obama and Russia's Vladimir Putin, met with his council of ministers and 77 secretaries of government departments and decided to do away with UPA relics such as Group of Ministers and four Cabinet Committees.
Even before the impact of the results in May could sink in, Modi and his team of advisers had begun thinking ahead. Already, his external affairs engagements are falling in place for the next year.
On the domestic front, Modi has been meeting governors and CMs. He also had meetings with his council of ministers, when he gave them a 10-point key result areas they need to focus on in the next five years.
Having attacked the previous government for "inaction" and "silence", Modi government is also setting a breakneck speed as far as communicating decisions to the public is concerned. Even before his decisions in the meetings with bureaucrats sink in, Modi takes to the social media to tweet about them, posting them on his and the PMO Twitter account.
This has been a major departure from the PMO of the UPA regime when hardly any information filtered out.
Ministries’ Presentations
Agriculture: Modi's first meeting with cluster of ministries, where he got presentations on Friday was concerning rural India, such as Agriculture, Water Resources, Food and Public Distribution, which reviewed the poor Monsoon this year, its likely impact on food grains production and the prices of essential commodities. At the three-hour meeting, he asked the Agriculture ministry to prepare a contingency plan for 500 districts to minimise the impact poor rains would have on the economy.
Defence: Modi was brought up to date with the Army's operational preparedness, gaps in its warfighting capabilities, including obsolescence of weapons and its urgent requirement for procurement and manpower woes by Army chief General Bikram Singh during a three-hour meet on Friday. He will be getting presentations from the Navy and the Air Force chiefs next, apart from one from the Defence Secretary on policy issues.
External Affairs: On May 16 night, foreign secretary Sujatha Singh led her officers to hold a late-night briefing for the PM before he met eight foreign leaders the next morning. She will also be briefing him before the Bhutan trip, and will be accompanying him. She also made a presentation to PM last week, based on the instructions of the cabinet secretariat. South Block is buzzing about why she did not take the other three MEA secretaries along and that the meeting could have touched upon highly confidential foreign policy issues that couldn’t be revealed to all.
(N C Bipindra, Yatish Yadav, Devirupa Mitra and U Anand Kumar contributed to the story)
Modi's first 20-day schedule
May 27: Assumes office as 15th PM, holds bilaterals with SAARC leaders, meets Manmohan Singh
May 28: Meets PMO officials, takes tour of PMO and Secretariat
■ Meets Delhi L-G, speaks to Chinese Premier Li Keqiang
May 29: Railway Ministers and his junior minister call on him
May 30: TDP chief N Chandrababu Naidu calls on him
May 31: Andaman L-G call on him; Abolishes GoMs, EGoMs
June 1: RBI Governor calls on him, meets VP Hamid Ansari
June 2: External Affairs Minister, Odisha and Kerala CMs, IAF chief, Prof CNR Rao call on him
June 3: Pays homage to demised Gopinath Munde; Tamil Nadu CM and Oman Sultan's Special Envoy call on Modi
June 4: Attends Parliament, takes oath as MP; meets all Central Government Secretaries
■ Chhattisgarh, UP Governors, Karnataka CM call on him
June 5: Thanks Pakistan PM for sari gift for mother; Himachal Pradesh, MP CMs call on him
June 6: Former PM HD Deve Gowda calls on PM; meets teenagers who scaled Mt Everest
June 7: Telangana CM, Arunachal and West Bengal Governors call on him
June 8: Lok Sabha Speaker, Chinese President’s Special Envoy call on him
June 9: Gujarat, Mizoram, Sikkim, Nagaland CMs call on him
June 10: Chhattisgarh, Puducherry, Goa CMs call on him; disbands four Cabinet Committees
June 11: Replies to debate on President's address in Parliament
June 12: UP CM calls on him; Releases postage stamp on FIFA world cup; Meets IFS probationers
June 13: Gets security briefing from Army; Reviews rural economy; Punjab CM, Puducherry L-G call on him