Man in the hot seat

In a rare interview, Cabinet Secretary K.M. Chandrasekhar spoke to BT's Puja Mehra on making ministries accountable, e-governance initiatives and the Commonwealth Games. Excerpts:

On making ministries accountable
We have just completed a three-month pilot on a monitoring and evaluation system of performance of ministries. The framework for making these assessments will settle over time and even be integrated with that used by the Planning Commission. The ministries (and states such as Maharashtra and Punjab, too) are working on measuring the changes in standards of living of the people for factoring into this exercise.

On corruption charges against Telecom Minister A. Raja and reports that the PM had cleared the way new 2G licences were allocated
A concerned PM had summoned the minister after receiving complaints on 2G spectrum allocation. When a minister briefs the PM on a policy decision, the latter's silence can't be interpreted as a go-ahead. Let's wait now for the outcome of the probes by various agencies.

On missing e-governance targets
Broadband penetration is not progressing fast enough, and I feel we have not gone about e-governance on the war-footing it will take. The Cabinet Secretariat will be completely paperless by April 1, 2011, when 95 per cent of our files would have been moved on to e-filing. I recently reviewed the progress on various projects and targets for e-governance with Nandan Nilekani and Sam Pitroda, and asked them for help in evolving a strategy for creating a common platform for all ministries and state governments.

On preparations for the Commonwealth Games
My responsibility is to oversee the progress on getting the basic infrastructure up and running in time for the Games. I have been touring the worksites, and I am sure it will be. The engineers and construction contractors are comfortable about meeting the deadline.