JOIN USUnion Home Minister Rajnath Singh has taken the lead in following Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s advice to assign enough work to their junior ministers.
Minister of State Kiren Rijuju has been given charge of several divisions, including border management and north-eastern affairs. He will also deal with divisions like disaster management and human rights. He will be in charge of day-to-day affairs of the divisions and report to the home minister directly.
Singh will handle crucial divisions like internal security, left-wing extremism, centre-state affairs, police modernisation and a few other divisions.
Modi had asked his cabinet colleagues to allocate enough work to their deputies. “It is requested that the distribution of work between the ministers of state in your ministry kindly be sent to this office at the earliest,” Modi said in a note sent to Cabinet ministers.
It had been a recurring complaint during the UPA regime that junior ministers were not given enough work by senior ministers.
At that time, Jyotiraditya Scindia, then minister of state for commerce, had complained that his senior Anand Sharma had not given him enough work.
Even then, Scindia’s complaint, who was elevated as minister of state with
independent charge later, and other ministers had reached the then prime minister Manmohan Singh.
Singh had even held a meeting with the juniors ministers and instructed Cabinet ministers to allot enough work for them. However, nothing much had changed on the ground. Modi has categorically told his Cabinet colleagues to share work with the junior ministers.
There are 10 ministers of state with independent charge and 12 ministers of state. Among those with independent charge, six have ministries where a Cabinet minister is the head.
Nirmala Seetharaman, who has independent charge of Commerce, has to also look after the Finance Ministry where Arun Jaitley is the Cabinet Minister in charge.