PM Narendra Modi Reviews Each Minister, Says This Will Happen Every 3 Months

New Delhi: In the first such exercise, Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Thursday held a five-hour-long meeting with his entire Council of Ministers to review how every department of his government has spent every rupee allocated to it since June 2014. And at the end of the meet, PM Modi indicated to his ministers that they can't sit easy as he will hold a similar exercise every three months.

The meeting started at 4 PM and ended at 9 PM. At the end of it, PM Modi asked his ministers to think out of the box to ensure that the benefit of allocations from budgets reach the last denominator. He also asked ministries which were trailing in performance to do better.

PM Modi asked ministers to cut delays in implementation of schemes and projects. A senior minister told NDTV, "The PM, without speaking about any ministry in particular, said there is delay in implementation of some project. He said that the impact of policies improves if we cut down the delays."

There are a total of 42 key departments in the Government of India. The meeting involved a review of how every department has implemented and how fruitfully allocations were made under the last three budgets the NDA government has presented.

The Finance Secretary and secretaries of respective departments made detailed presentations of over 100 pages to ministers to back up their departments' performance.

PM Modi asked them to do better. If his government has attracted political attacks for not keeping promises made in the party manifestos, he asked the ministers to read up the campaign documents and shape and implement policies to ensure that the public trusts what the party promises them during campaign.

The review made it evident that the targets fixed for 2014-15 were met. The PM urged the ministers to ensure that the agenda for 2015-16 if incomplete should be delivered and work should begin in earnest to ensure that 2016-17 is better in terms of delivery.

PM Modi has been holding a meeting of his council every month. But these monthly meets were only to review the performance of only four-five ministries and departments.

Yesterday's meet had heightened the speculation about a long awaited cabinet rejig by PM Modi. Sources in the government had indicated that the PM is holding the review as a measure to gauge how ministers have performed. Though there is buzz that the reshuffle may happen in the next two-three days along with changes in BJP President Amit Shah's team, there was no clear confirmation from the top.