New Delhi: Prime Minister Narendra Modi today chaired a crucial meeting of his Council of Ministers at the Parliament House ahead of a likely reshuffle in the government.
News of the reshuffle have been doing the rounds over the past week as the Prime Minister looks to pause, re-assess the performance of ministers and then move forward.
A top government official said that the Prime Minister reviewed the performance of various ministries in spending budgetary allocations and implementing schemes in the past two years and asked his colleagues to ensure schemes be tailored to benefit masses.
At an over four-hour-long meeting of the Council of Ministers, the Prime Minister reviewed the performance of all Union Ministries to ascertain whether budgetary allocations have been spent wisely.
He also sought to know the number of schemes implemented by each Ministry.
Modi, according to those present in the meeting, asked the ministers to ensure that schemes are tailored in such a fashion that the benefit reaches the common man.
Several ministers made suggestions on how best budget can be utilised. They also pointed out that at times, one sector gets more attention at the cost of the other.
Top bureaucrats made a power point presentation running into over 100 slides.
Modi was of the view that schemes mentioned in the election manifesto are implemented in true spirit to that the Opposition does not get a chance to accuse the government of falling short on promises.
Expressing satisfaction over the implementation of various schemes, he said there was no need to come up with fresh schemes and the present ones should be altered as per changing needs.
Today's review is been dubbed as a 'report card' of Union Ministers as there is talk of a long-pending reshuffle of the Council of Ministers. But ministers said there was no mention of the reshuffle exercise and the meeting was very "business like" where the prime minister took stock of the performance of various ministries.
PM Modi's meeting with his ministers comes a day after he met BJP president Amit Shah and Finance Minister Arun Jaitley at his residence.
After the Wednesday meeting, speculation mounted that the Prime Minister may carry out his first “major” ministerial reshuffle.
The Prime Minister is planning a major revamp of his Union Cabinet ahead of his four African nations tour, starting July 7. Sources said that a reshuffle of the Union Cabinet is likely to take place on July 4 with more representation expected to be given to poll-bound Uttar Pradesh and Punjab.
The Prime Minister held similar meetings in January and May where a detailed presentation regarding the progress in implementation of the Cabinet decisions were discussed.
