Rotarians gain insight into the new Government’s philosophy

Piyush Goyal

Piyush Goyal is the Minister of State with Independent Charge for Power, Coal and New & Renewable Energy in the Government of India. He is currently a Member of Rajya Sabha and was earlier the National Treasurer of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). He headed the BJP’s Information Communication Campaign Committee and oversaw the publicity and advertising campaign of the party, including the social media outreach for the Indian General Elections 2014.

He thanked President Shailesh Haribhakti for inviting him to the Club and expressed his gratitude and privilege at being there. “It is truly a pleasure to speak among all of you. It has been 10 months now in the new government and our focus has been on instilling the feeling of optimism and hope for the future. That is precisely the reason why you voted us into Government and also why we, as the government, will try and change the paradigm of what we have been looking at for many years as good governance. I will centre this talk on what the philosophy of this new government is.

“When Prime Minister Modi was sworn in, the situation became such that every day, between power, coal and renewable energy, at an average, I would get 100 files to clear. The one thing I found was that everybody seemed to have a very genuine case but many cases could be bunched together to demonstrate where and how you could actually hit at the root and resolve the problem. In my first week, I drew up ten commandments of what one should do and how one should run his own work in Government. One of the first and most important lessons for me was that instead of resolving individual cases, let’s do a root cause analysis and ensure that this does not affect anybody else in the future and maybe, with one action you can clear fifty people’s problems. What I learnt from this was get to the root cause of the problem, prioritise the concerns of the people, build an action-oriented agenda, have a transparent mechanism to operate and run it through a transparent process, make your people accountable and monitor them regularly so that the actions you intended are going in the direction you want them to be, and have an overarching framework of good governance which helps you reach your ultimate objective, maybe just a little slower.”

He said that, thanks to this approach, he barely received five to six files today and the response has been overwhelming. He explained, “We have looked at this (approach) as the guiding principle and the focus of all our work. To make it a root cause analysis, adopt a policy and procedure-driven approach to resolve people’s problems, use innovative financing models to change the pace at which power prices are going, bring in some innovative thinking and, at the end of the day, do ensure that everything you do is transparent and whatever can impact the people at large is known to the people at large.”

In closing, he spoke about the difference the new government is trying to bring to people’s lives. He said, “We are not promising subsidies or government intervention, but we will make them self-reliant and reap the benefits of good governance for years to come. Not because of the benevolence of a government in or out of power, not because there is an election around the corner and promises are made, but as a matter of right, as something which is affordable and that everybody has an equal opportunity to enjoy.”