PM Modi’s Cabinet Revamp: PhDs, MBAs, Techies on Board; Modi’s Model for reform

National

In a major overhaul, Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Wednesday brought in 36 new faces to his Union Cabinet and promoted seven existing ministers. Meanwhile, 12 top ministers have been dropped from the Cabinet. The new ministers will meet BJP chief JP Nadda later today. Forty-three ministers, including seven who were elevated as cabinet ministers, took the oath of office at a function at the Rashtrapati Bhavan held with protocols related to Covid-19.

Before the cabinet reshuffle, Padma Shri awardee Mohandas Pai wrote that technocrats as ministers can help PM Modi deliver better on jobs. He said that for the next three years, the government’s big focus should be achieving high economic growth, lowering the barriers to growth and creating good-quality jobs so that quality of life and ease of living goes up. For that to happen, we need people in the government who have worked outside the government, are connected to the industry, can independently assess the effectiveness of policies in people’s lives, and can work to bridge the gap between people and policies.

Thus, understanding the need of the hour, PM Modi has widened the net of talent and tried to get some good technocrats, bureaucrats, lawyers, PHDs, MBAs from Harvard, Stanford and Wharton on board to work with some critical ministries so that there can be a greater push for growth and a greater push for better-quality jobs. New union cabinet is very diverse. With field experts and techies roped into governance to deliver goods to boost efficiency and formulate grassroots policy reforms, let’s see how PM’s delivery model works out.

According to sources, PM began work with the new ministers, just a day after cabinet reshuffle. The Prime Minister interacted with Directors of centrally funded technical institutions like IIT Bombay, IIT Madras, IIT Kanpur & IISc Bangalore via video conference today. New Education Min Dharmendra Pradhan was also present.