The present PMO is by far quite bulky in size, if not the bulkiest. However this has not helped prevent the rapid devolution of its real time powers, both decision making and implementation, to the nodal ministries. Consider the facts. When Pranab Mukherjee took over finance, the PMO had suddenly lost its enormous leverage to draw up and micro manage the nation's economic and trade policies from close quarters. There have been frequent strategy sessions at PMO attended by the PM/and/or his officials, planning commission deputy chairman Montek Singh Ahluwalia and the then finance minister P. Chidambaram. No major initiative had escaped the PMO screening.

In fact, most strategy papers had their origin at Ahluwalia's office and were constantly pursued from the PMO with various economic ministries. These included the unfinished reform agenda, whether it is the pending bills like labour amendment and insurance and banking or forcing disinvestment and removing FDI cap. The whole pattern changed after Pranab Mukherjee took charge in North Bloc. After all, he is not the one to be called at will, like the Chidambaram of UPA2, for lessons from technocrats and bureaucrats. This also had chain effects on other economic ministers. Even Anand Sharma goes more to Mukherjee for directions.

The latter has an additional advantage. Once a minister gets the informal okay from Mukherjee on a proposal, its endorsement at the cabinet meeting is ensured. It is not so with PM. Kapil Sibal will tell you how the PM-blessed initiatives were later blocked under party's ire. Defence is another sovereign zone where the PMO lost all leverages. Even at the initial stages when A.K. Antony was dismissed as 'dhotiwala' at officers' clubs - it is no more now - he had valiantly resisted outside pressures. The case of signing over a set of ten military agreements with the US such a LSA (logistics support agreements that provides base facilities for US troops in India) is a pointer.

Antony had stopped the proposal when it had come for cabinet approval. Since then he had spurned PMO's repeated entreaties to sign them as a gesture to facilitate nuclear deal. He agreed to sign only one - EUVA - that too with new safeguards in India's favour. He fiercely resists lobbying for arms purchases even at the peak of George Bush days. The latest to slip off the PMO control was the home ministry. M.K. Narayanan, the powerful NSA functioning from the PMO, had remote-controlled the home ministry throughout Shivraj Patil's tenure. Chidambaram, armed with more clout, quickly halted the remote control.

After the 'loss' of big ticket Finance, Defence and Home, now even S.M. Krishna is showing signs of territorial self-rule. But foreign affairs is an area where PMO's writ will continue to be greatly felt. Foreign relations and India's strategic positioning will be the main concern of new NSA Shivashankar Menon. This calls for constant coordination with the foreign minister. As for railways, it was always a sovereign empire. And every one in this government is scared of her mood change.

Is such erosion of PM's clout in UPA's second term by design? There can be no straight answer. However, a Congress functionary in a crucial position refers back to the days of UPA's victory euphoria in May last. He narrates how the media had ignored the hard work put in by Sonia Gandhi and thousands of Congress workers and pushed the 'Singh is King' theme. They dubbed the victory solely as an endorsement of PM's policies and his bold initiatives. The corporate lobbies and media asked Singh to go ahead with his own unfinished agenda without caring for the discordant noises from his party (Left had by then become irrelevant). Then they projected Ahluwalia as finance minister and named such other non-party men for crucial ministries.

Do you need any more enemies when you have such sponsors? No serious political party, he says, could have accepted such a challenge to its leadership. If this version is correct, deputing Mukherjee to finance with a political mandate was the best answer to what they call an 'alien takeover'. Another factor trotted out is: since L.K. Advani's 'puppet PM' theme has finally got buried, the party establishment need not any more artificially hold aloft the 'prerogatives' façade. The mandate to Mukherjee had a political message. It has been a game changer effected by the Sonia establishment to give the right direction to the party's economic policies without too much of a doctrinaire baggage and to fine-tune it to the political needs of the ruling party.

This week the PM summoned Mukherjee and Sharad Pawar to coordinate measures to check the price rise. The PMO can still take such fruitful initiatives as in the case of the strategic discord between the transport and environment ministries. Sending out directives on code of conduct for the ministers or seeking to rein in them through monitoring and grading is a poor substitute for fruitful inter-ministerial coordination. That is why the PMO's recent move to bring ministers and secretaries under a corporate-style Performance Monitoring and Evaluation System (PMES), has evoked so much resistance. Ministers see it as restrictive and unsuitable in the sphere of public administration.

So far, 59 departments have signed an 'MoU' to subject themselves to grading on a '0 to 100' scale. The PMO has set up one more expert group - 'Performance Management Unit' - comprising former bureaucrats and management gurus to set targets for the ministries, summon veterans like Pranab Mukherjee for explanations and grant them grades as per their 'performance' on quarterly basis. Originally, the idea was to hire an 'independent' private grading agency. That seems to have been dropped.

Drawn up in September last, the big four - Mukherjee, Antony, Chidambaram and even Krishna - have refused to sign the MoU for PMES. Some other ministers had signed when told all others had done so. They are now having second thoughts on submitting themselves to scrutiny by those who have not taken oath of office. A furious Mamata scoffs it as 'student's report cards'. Krishna wonders how delicate diplomatic initiative could be quantified and graded quarterly. Similar is the case with defence and internal security. (IPA Service)