Donald Trump’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) led by Elon Musk tasked with driving efficiency in government spending (a subject we have featured here in 3L&3S in the past) thereby reducing budget deficit, seems wasn’t original after all. The more spectacular reduction in the role of the state has been driven by the Argentinian President Javier Milei, which has been acknowledged by Musk himself as an inspiration of sorts. But even more remarkably closer home, as this piece in the Print suggests, India’s own journey in driving government efficiency whilst not as dramatic has been ongoing for a while.
“It all started in 2017, with the report of the Committee for the Review of Autonomous Bodies, headed by former finance secretary Ratan Watal, who was then a principal adviser in the federal think-tank NITI Aayog.
The Watal committee had reviewed the working of 679 autonomous bodies under different ministries/departments and recommended rationalising a third of them by either merging them with other institutions or shutting those that had outlived their utility.
“The idea behind the exercise was to trim the flab in the government and use public money with greater efficiency,” Watal told ThePrint.
Monitored by the PMO, action started on the report soon.
…Over a dozen autonomous bodies and institutions, which had outlived their utility or where there was duplication of work, have been wound up or merged with the parent ministries/departments. However, unlike the US, the layoffs in India because of this rationalisation exercise have been minimal.”
It cites several examples of this flab trimming:
“In 2018, the cabinet approved shutting down the Rashtriya Arogya Nidhi and Jansankhya Sthirata Kosh. They came under the department of health and family welfare.
In 2020, the All India Handloom Board and the All India Handicrafts Board, both advisory bodies under the textiles ministry, were dissolved.
In 2022, the Tariff Commission was shut down. Set up in 1951, its role was to suggest changes in duties of any goods and action in relation to dumping of goods.
In 2021 and 2022, several agencies under the railways ministry were closed. These included the Indian Railways Organisation of Alternative Fuel, Indian Railway Stations Development Corporation, Central Organisation for Modernisation of Workshops and the Special Railway Establishment for Strategic Technology and Holistic Advancement.
…Watal said his panel’s mandate was to look at trusts, autonomous bodies and societies that were government-funded.
“The governance structures in many of these institutions was very weak… there was no accountability,” he said, adding: “We engaged with all stakeholders systematically, keeping in view their sensibilities and points of view.”
The committee had reviewed the functioning of 679 autonomous bodies across 68 ministries/departments. The total outlay of these bodies in the 2017-18 Union Budget was to the tune of over Rs 77,000 crore.
“Our mandate was to look at the functioning of these bodies and see if the money they are being given by the government was being spent properly. After all, it is public money and should be spent with greater efficiency. If it was not spent for the purpose it was given for, we recommended that the body be closed down or merged or relooked at,” Watal said.”
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