In Kerala, developments are making their way. Progress to improve the government’s ‘rules of business’ so as to assure more power to the chief minister and department secretaries, and thereby clip ministers’ authority, has invited severe opposition from LDF partners. The CPI and other Left parties opposed the move at the Cabinet sub-committee meeting held on Wednesday. They have also given their objection to Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan. However, Pinarayi termed the news of reform mere consideration and said the draft report is currently under the opinion of the Cabinet panel. 

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The rules of business are a set of rules that governs the government’s routine administrative business - was last amended 15 years ago. In 2018, the then Left government had committed a five-member committee of secretaries with the task of initiating changes to the rules. When the draft report came up for discussion before the five-member Cabinet committee, ministers E Chandrasekharan and S Krishnankutty opposed many of the proposals.

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“Proposals that give more powers to secretaries cannot be accepted in a democratic system. Ministers have recorded their dissent and forwarded it to the chief minister. Since these are rules concerning the Cabinet, they can only be accepted after the Cabinet’s final approval,” said a senior CPI leader.  A K Balan is the convener of the panel, and A K Saseendran and Ramachandran Kadannappally are the members. While some of the suggestions are to speed up the file movement, the proposal to provide primary responsibility to secretaries could see them taking a final call on files keeping the minister concerned in the dark. 

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