New Delhi: Prime Minister Narendra Modi-led NDA government came to power in 2014 with the assurance of “minimum government, maximum governance”. Since Prime Minister Modi-government took oath in 2019 for the second term, a year after was marked by the Covid-19 pandemic and lockdowns, followed by unlocking and economic recovery, farmer protests, vaccination drive and state elections and the deadlier second wave. After seven years of being in power, the Modi Government has now let go of some ministers and inducted new ministers into the Council of Ministers.
According to the LocalCircles, which conducts an annual assessment via citizens’ survey to gauge the performance of the government, found that the government, which apreared to be in a strong position even till late February, is being perceived as faltering by a section of the citizenry.
LocalCircles is a community social media platform for citizens. The survey found 24 per cent drop in the rating within two years, with only 51 per cent of over 70,000 citizens rated Modi government 2.0 as meeting or exceeding expectations. The percentage stood at 75 per cent on March 5, 2019 when LocalCircles conducted the survey before the May 2019 Lok Sabha elections.
The survey in its 7th year indicated that 49 per cent of citizens saw the government’s performance “below expectations”, marking an all-time low. With the government dropping 12 ministers from its existing council of 53 ministers, promoting seven and 43 ministers taking oath, the new council will have over 75 ministers. While citizens are supportive of the idea of replacing retirees with new ministers and non-performers with up and coming, LocalCircles asked citizens about one thing they believe that the government needs to do for better governance .
While more ministers have been inducted into the government, 53 per cent citizens believe that to improve governance delivery, KRAs, objectives and accountability are needed. In response, only 2 per cent of citizens said “more ministers” will enable the government to deliver better governance, while another 2 per cent said “more bureaucrats”, and 2 per cent said both “more ministers as well as bureaucrats”. A majority of 53 per cent of citizens believe that a “robust system to set clear objectives and measure performance against them (ministers)” will enable the government to deliver better governance. This question in the survey received 9,618 responses.
(Picture Above - New Delhi: Union Ministers, from left to right in the top row- Narayan Rane, Sarbananda Sonowal, Virendra Kumar, Jyotiraditya Scindia, Ramchandra Prasad Singh; from left to right in the middle row- Ashwini Vaishnaw, Pashu Pati Kumar Paras, Kiren Rijiju, Raj Kumar Singh, Hardeep Singh Puri; and from left to right in the bottom row- Mansukh Mandaviya, Bhupnder Yadav, Parshottam Rupala, G. Kishan Reddy, Anurag Thakur with Prime Minister Narendra Modi before taking oath, in New Delhi, Wednesday, July 7, 2021. PTI Photo)