NEW DELHI: PM Narendra Modi on Wednesday directed setting up of over half a dozen groups comprising ministers, each having eight members, to brainstorm on issues including self-improvement, communication and governance ahead of two-day “Chintan Shivir” of entire council of ministers scheduled next week, TOI has learnt.The retreat will be held at Seva Teerth and comes almost midway through the third term of Modi-led NDA govt. A similar Chintan Shivir was conducted on Oct 21, 2021, barely months after a major Cabinet reshuffle during the second term. At that time, deliberations focused on governance and policy making and this exercise was aimed at helping ministers better understand issues of governance. Different ministers had made detailed presentations with participation of their colleagues in the council.
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The next brainstorming session is expected to follow a similar format, with thematic discussions and presentations by different groups. This is being seen as taking stock of governance, improving coordination among ministries and preparing the govt’s future agenda.Officials said that recently ministries were asked to provide the actions taken on the recommendations of the 2021 Chintan Shivir meeting. Several directions were issued to ministers and ministries, including to have live dashboards of ministry’s activities, review progress and hold interactions with all staff to get feedback and ideas. “This was an indication that at any point of time there could be a review of progress across ministries,” said an official.Last week, the PM had asked all ministers to work on making official websites of ministries and departments more user-friendly.
