In this second part of our serialisation of Mr. Anil Swarup’s latest book, No More a Civil Servant, we present some excerpts from the chapter on the Prime Minister’s Office, My Brush with the PMO.
The use of the word ‘brush’ implies that his interactions were not that frequent, but just about enough for him to gauge the change in the mood here, too.
Just like he writes about changes he observed in Prime Minister Modi, he now mentions the changes he noticed in the Prime Minister Office, especially in the Principal Secretary to the PM, with whom he’s had the privilege to work with, in Uttar Pradesh.
A CHANGED PERSON
Mr. Swarup writes that he was thrilled when he learned that Mr. Nripendra Mishra would be the Principal Secretary to the Prime Minister and head the Prime Minister’s Office (PMO), as he had worked with him as Director, Information and Public Relations, when he was Secretary to Kalyan Singh, Chief Minister of Uttar Pradesh, during 1991-92. However, this thrill was short-lived.
“When I met Shri Mishra for the first time at the PMO, I was stunned to find that he appeared very distant. Unlike Shri Mishra, I knew, he continued to be engaged with his papers when he spoke to me. He had doubts about everything being done at the PMG, even questioning the outcomes.”
ASKED TO CALL ON COAL MINISTER, HE REFUSED
Mr. Swarup was then heading the PMG or Project Management Group, an august body formed to take stock and manage the central government’s ambitious projects. Soon, however, he was called to take up the post of the Coal Secretary, where he played a successful innings, being able to mitigate the coal crisis the country was facing at that time, just like it is facing now.
“I was not aware that I was being considered for the post of Coal Secretary to clear the mess in the sector. One of my batchmates approached me to convey that I should meet the Coal Minister. As a matter of principle, I did not meet the Minister. One day even Shri Mishra asked me why I was not meeting the Coal Minister. I politely told him that I had not met any Minister before being posted (this included my posting as Secretary to Shri Kalyan Singh during his second tenure as Chief Minister), and I had no intention of ‘calling on’ the Minister before being posted.”
Thus, in his own words, “the initial forays at the PMO were not very smooth.”
PRESSURE TO FAVOUR PRIVILEGED INDUSTRIALISTS
The transparency he ensured in the coal block auctions and its success found prominence in newsrooms and news reels, but when the call came from the PMO, it was not on expected lines. “When the call from Shri Mishra came, I had expected a few words of praise from him as well. He was, however, upset. He complained that the PMO was not kept informed.”
And as coal production substantially increased, so did the pressure to accommodate some industrialists. He writes how in almost every meeting convened by the PMO, whether relating to coal or otherwise, he was asked if he had provided linkages to some ‘privileged’ industrialists. Ultimately, he had to send a note to the Principal Secretary raising certain issues and questioning why coal should be supplied at a notified price to such entities granting undue favour or preferential treatment to them when there is no legal or contractual obligation.
“In a subsequent meeting at the PMO, when the issue came up for discussion again, and I referred to the note that I had sent, I was given a dressing down that the PMO does not take decisions. How true it was! Yes, we were told very clearly that PMO should not be mentioned in any decision the Ministry/Department takes. Lessons were learned from the mistakes of the previous government.”
His “sticking to his guns” didn’t seem to go down well, it seems, as very soon he found himself out of the mines of coals and into the corridors of education, where he was to find out that school education was not high on the government’s priority.
“The budgetary allocation for school education had kept coming down since 2014-15. It was `55,115 crore for that year, and as a percentage of GDP, it was 0.52. For 2016-17, it came down to `43,554 crore (0.36% of GDP). In one of the rare school education meetings at the PMO, when I brought this to the notice of the participants, the normally unflappable Shri P K Mishra got very annoyed. He appeared to be convinced that I was not providing the correct figures. There were many occasions when those at the PMO were not prepared to face facts, and I wondered how they could then convey facts to the PM.”
… and his visits to the PMO became even more few and far between.
(To be continued…)
