‘Don’t view minister through the prism of gender’
Railway minister Goyal stresses on safety of passengers; housing minister Puri hits the ground running with three meetings
NEWDELHI: Defence minister Nirmala Sitharaman, the surprise pick of Sunday’s reshuffle of the Union council of ministers, has her task cut out and her appointment should not be seen through the prism of gender, senior serving and retired officers said. The 58-year-old Sitharaman is the first woman to be the full-time defence minister of the country after Indira Gandhi held the portfolio 35 years ago when she was also the prime minister.
“I don’t think it should be seen as a move to empower women. That’s good but not an end in itself. The ultimate goal is to empower the armed forces,” said former IAF chief Air Chief Marshal Arup Raha during whose term the government ended a rigid gender-based combat exclusion policy in the air force two years ago.
Sitharaman’s appointment comes at a time when India’s first female pilots are preparing to fly warplanes after they complete the last leg of their training later this month. Raha said a key test for Sitharaman would be to introduce accountability for all stake holders. “When you talk about defence acquisition or defence finance wings, they are important stakeholders but have no accountability. She will have to ensure decisions are outcome based and not process based,” Raha said. The main challenges that the new minister will face include modernising the military, ushering in big-ticket reforms, managing volatile borders and arranging funds for big buys.
“Weapon buys can’t be seen as just commercial transactions. We can’t lose sight of what is good for the country strategically… Women by nature are very determined and if she can work with the same efficiency as she did in her previous ministry, things will change in the defence ministry,” Raha said.
NEWDELHI: Newly appointed railway minister Piyush Goyal, who took charge on Monday, said his “top priority” will be to ensure passenger safety.
“I will strive to work on the template of rail modernisation that my predecessor Suresh Prabhu had outlined,” he said, describing Prabhu as his “mentor and guide”. Prabhu, who was appointed commerce and industry minister on Sunday, had taken several initiatives to revitalise the public transporter but offered to resign following a spate of fatal rail disasters.
Similar gestures towards their predecessors marked the first day in office of many ministers who were given new responsibilities by Prime Minister Narendra Modi in a cabinet reshuffle that saw the induction of nine new faces, promotion of seven ministers and resignation of six.
Former diplomat Hardeep Singh Puri, who was given independent charge of housing and urban affairs ministry, hit the ground running on Monday with three meetings — on the status of metro rail expansion, the NDA government’s flagship Housing for All scheme and the functioning of CPWD.
Puri, who was in Colombo a day before the reshuffle when he got a call about his appointment, had a packed day. At the meeting on metro rail, he impressed upon officials that India was lagging behind China in expanding the rail network.
“We need to catch up,” an official quoted the minister as saying. Puri advocated private investment “wherever feasible”, said the official. Then he took a two-hour presentation on Housing for All.
“It (the ministry) is a new chapter but the issues are not completely unfamiliar. As India’s permanent representative to the UN, I had to deal with issues of habitat cities and urban space management,” he said.
Puri also received good wishes from former PM Manmohan Singh, who called up to congratulate him. It was during Singh’s term that Puri was India’s Permanent Representative to UN.
Road transport and shipping minister Nitin Gadkari, who was also given the charge of water resources and Ganga rejuvenation, announced the setting up of an interministerial task force to expedite implementation of Namami Ganga mission.
“We will form a task force...We will come out with a schedule of targets to be achieved under the mission in a week.
We will try to realise the dreams of the PM in a timebound, transparent manner...we will attain all the deadlines fixed by my predecessor Umaji,” he said.
Uma Bharti, who has been shifted to drinking water and sanitation ministry, opted to field questions on Ken-Betwa riverlinking project when they were posed to Gadkari.
Petroleum minister Dharmendra Pradhan, who was promoted and given additional responsibility of skill development and entrepreneurship, said his priority will be to work towards bringing speed to Skill India plan.
Giving credit to his predecessor Rajiv Pratap Rudy, Pradhan said, “This is a policy driven ministry and in the last three years, we have been able to lay down the foundation for skill development in the country… We will now explore all possible grid system, information systems, technology advent that the country is witnessing, conventional jobs and new age skills to enable a more efficient outcome of our programs and schemes in skills.”
Alphons Kannanthanam, who took charge of the tourism ministry, waited for about an hour for his predecessor Mahesh Sharma to arrive and hand over charge, refusing to occupy his chair.
When Sharma walked in, Kannanthanam insisted that his predecessor occupy the same chair. “We can go much, much beyond Incredible India.
We want to create an India where we love ourselves, love a clean India and its history. Then we tell the world, come and see us,” he said.