Suggest ways to ‘transform’ governance, PM tells secretaries

Amid hectic brainstorming with top bureaucrats at the Centre as well as state chief secretaries over the past two days, Prime Minister Narendra Modi has urged them to summon all their experience and come up with innovative ideas to implement the model of “good governance”.

In a meeting with the secretaries of all major ministries on Thursday evening, Mr Modi formed eight sub-groups comprising secretaries of key ministries on initiatives by the NDA government in the past 18 months and sought their feedback within a fortnight on “transformative” ways that could ensure “breakthroughs” in governance, sources told this newspaper.

Thursday’s meeting came within 24 hours of a meeting the PM held through video-conferencing on Wednesday (December 30) with the chief secretaries of all states.

At Wednesday’s meeting, Mr Modi voiced concern over the slow pace of work on the Hyderabad metro rail project, as well as exhorted officials to give special attention to the Kaladan multi-modal transit transport project in Myanmar which New Delhi is implementing.