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Finance ministry reshuffle put on hold

Paranjoy Guha Thakurta in New Delhi

An impending reshuffle of top officials in the Indian finance ministry has been put on hold due to opposition from within Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee's Bharatiya Janata Party and its ideological parent, the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh.

A senior BJP functionary, speaking on the condition of anonymity, said Finance Minister Yashwant Sinha had been asked to bide his time before replacing a number of senior bureaucrats and advisers in his ministry.

At the same time, the source said, there would certainly be changes in North Block, the ministry's imposing headquarters, at a later date to enable Sinha to put together his 'own team' of officials in the run-up to presentation of next fiscal year's annual budget at the end of February.

Sinha has been criticised for frequently changing his 'core' group of bureaucrats. Since March 1998, four individuals have served in the position of finance secretary, the senior-most official in the ministry.

They are Montek Singh Ahluwalia, Vijay Kelkar, Piyush Mankad and Ajit Kumar.

By way of contrast, only two persons had served as finance secretary - S P Shukla and Ahluwalia - during the five-year tenure of Manmohan Singh as finance minister between June 1991 and May 1996.

"The comparison is unfair," quips a cynical North Block bureaucrat. "It's a bit like comparing the South African cricket team with the one from Bangladesh."

Ajit Kumar, the present finance secretary, is due to retire at the end of January. He is tipped to become chairman of the Central Electricity Regulatory Commission, a post that has been lying vacant since the term of former CERC chairman S L Rao ended almost a year ago.

Kumar is said to have powerful mentors in the government, including Defence Minister George Fernandes and the prime minister's principal secretary Brajesh Mishra.

As defence secretary, Kumar reportedly assisted his mentors to dismiss the former Chief of India's Naval Staff Admiral Vishnu Bhagwat. Consequently, Kumar was promoted to the post of finance secretary though he was not known to be Finance Minister Sinha's choice.

Soon after Kumar and other senior bureaucrats were inducted into the ministry, the then secretary for economic affairs, E A S Sarma, resigned his post after he was sought to be transferred as secretary to the ministry of coal and mines.

This time round, Kumar is likely to be replaced by the current expenditure secretary C M Vasudev. His senior, revenue secretary S Narayan, is slated to become the new commerce secretary after current incumbent Prabir Sengupta retires in January. Narayan is likely to be replaced by Nripendra Mishra, special secretary in the commerce ministry who is an expert on the World Trade Organisation.

As for Vasudev, he has over a decade of experience working in the finance ministry. He has held a number of positions in the ministry from the early 1980s when he served as personal secretary to then finance minister Pranab Mukherjee.

Vasudev has also worked in the World Bank, served as director in the department of economic affairs and has been finance secretary in the government of Uttar Pradesh. In more recent years, he has held the positions of additional secretary, budget, and special secretary, banking, before he became expenditure secretary more than two years ago.

Finance Minister Sinha has reportedly accepted the advice of sections within the BJP and the RSS that an impression should not gain ground that there have been frequent changes in the higher echelons of the bureaucracy at North Block. He recently persuaded his economic adviser Rakesh Mohan not to leave his job.

Mohan had put in his papers and wanted to go back to the position he was earlier holding as executive vice-chairman of the Infrastructure Development Finance Corporation. On Wednesday, Sinha convinced Mohan not to quit and reportedly promised him that he would play an active role in preparing the forthcoming Economic Survey and the budget.

At a time when the finance minister is being criticised by his political opponents for his failure to revive the economy, he can hardly afford to be seen as a person who cannot get along with his bureaucrats and advisers.

Indo-Asian News Service
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