Review Of Govt Work, Future Plans, Identifying Next Set Of Reforms Key Focus At 'Chintan Shivir'

A two-day 'Chintan Shivir' of Union ministers will begin on Wednesday, where key focus will be on stocktaking as well as future planning and reviewing the work underway across the government and identifying the next set of ideas and reforms.

Official sources said the brainstorming session on September 23 and 24 will be held at 'Seva Teerth', which houses the Prime Minister's Office (PMO), and will be attended by the entire Council of Ministers.

The conclave, to be chaired by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, will focus on stocktaking as well as future planning and reviewing the work underway across the government and identifying the next set of ideas, reforms and priorities towards a 'Viksit Bharat' (developed India) @2047.'

The 'Viksit Bharat' exercise has been underway since 2021. Ten sectoral groups of secretaries were constituted to prepare the 'Vision@2047' and its short-term and long-term roadmap.

Vast stakeholder consultation was also done for this exercise, sources said.

Since then, there have been eight presentations and discussions before the Council of Ministers on different aspects of 'Viksit Bharat@2047.

The present 'Chintan Shivir' takes this process forward, they said. It brings together the work being done by groups of secretaries, ministries and departments, Cabinet secretariat and NITI Aayog, including reforms, ease of living, reduction of compliances and other governance priorities.

Sources said this is not an isolated 'Chintan Shivir' as after the two rounds of discussions on September 23 and 24, further rounds will also be lined up in the coming days.

The conclave is expected to discuss the progress of government schemes, policy implementation, time management, inter-ministerial coordination and public service delivery among others.

About half-a-dozen groups comprising eight ministers each were constituted to brainstorm on issues like time-bound implementation of programmes and other governance issues.

These groups have already held a number of meetings where they discussed the presentations to be made at the conclave.

Some ministers are likely to make presentations on policies and measures undertaken by their respective ministries to advance reforms in various sectors, the sources said.

The prime minister has been emphasising reforms in different aspects of government and had told his Cabinet colleagues in the past that addressing people's problems and ensuring ease of living should be the prime objectives of the government.

These issues are expected to figure in discussions during the meeting, the sources said.

The presentations of the ministers may focus on ways to make the policy-making process more effective and impactful.

A similar exercise was conducted on October 21, 2021. At that time, deliberations focused on governance and policymaking and this exercise is aimed at helping ministers better understand the issues being faced by the government.

This is being seen as taking stock of governance, improving coordination among ministries and preparing the government's future agenda.

In the recent past, several directions were issued to ministers and ministries, including to have live dashboards of ministries' activities, review progress and hold interactions with all staff to get feedback and ideas.

Earlier this month, the prime minister had asked all ministers to work on making official websites of ministries and departments more user-friendly.