It all began with his directions to the ministers to prepare a 100-day schedule and send its implementation details to him. When initially no one obliged him, his office set specific dates for the filing the report card. Now the PM has set up a Soviet-style cell - 'Delivery Monitoring Unit' — in his office headed by his principal secretary T.K.A. Nair. The DMU will get quarterly reports from ministries on the progress of infrastructure, security and social sector programmes. Covering 18 key programmes cutting across ministries, PM will thus keep a tab on his colleagues.

Clearly, this is a masterstroke aimed at killing several birds at one shot. First, such an elaborate arrangement will silence allies like Mamata Banerjee and DMK who have been demanding a revised common minimum programme for UPA2. They had, in fact, raised the demand at the first meeting of the UPA. Second, to preclude a return of the old NGOs and award-winning social activists at the head of the government's social schemes. After the judicial clearance of Sonia Gandhi's chairmanship of the national body, there were talks about the revival of the old body. This could have put unnecessary restrictions on the government.

The third has more to do with the main ruling party's internal politics. After the PM's recent flip-flop on issues like Pakistan, there have been subtle signs of the party establishment assuming a more assertive role. Quarterly reporting to the PM will act as lever and put a leash on the ministers increasingly looking to the party establishment for guidance. Of late, PM has begun calling the ministers and seeking explanations on specific issues. He praised the work of some ministers - Kapil Sibal and Anand Sharma, for instance - and withheld others' report card.

The fourth is what his critics in the party describe as more sinister. There has been hushed talk about certain veiled moves to what they suspect delink the aam aadmi programmes from electoral politics and put them under the technocrats and reform bureaucracy. Some AICC functionaries, including a former chief minister, fear that such a makeover of any social programme will invariably reduce them to the status of another old-style reform programme with its narrow objective of raising the GDP.

If social programmes like NREGS and Indira aawaz yojna are divorced from the grass-root workers and their political content taken away, it will simply lose it jaan (soul). Popular content, not dead data, gives it life. Any move to depoliticize it will be resisted, they say. Like garibi hatao and 20-point programme had endeared Indira to the poor, Sonia now enjoys the trust of the aam aadmi due to her social programmes. This had given her a popular identity and helped the Congress win votes. These are her programmes, and Congressmen will not support moves to put them under foreign lenders and business management experts. This is how sections of the Congress feel.

After Indira Gandhi's triumphant return, it is pointed out, the 20-point programme was put under a planning commission cell for monthly evaluation of its implementation. Soon it got buried in government data. Some fear the PMO's decision for quarterly assessment by the DMU will also meet a similar fate. If what Congress circles fear is true, there is also a 'conspiracy' to seek foreign funds for some of Sonia's flagship programmes. Secret negotiations are reportedly going on for World Bank/IMF funds. Just this week, the bank had announced a 4.3 billion dollar stimulus loan for PSU banks and three other specific schemes. This was negotiated by the Planning Commission boss.

Once the finance minister falls in line (he might be happy if part of the burden of flagship programmes is borne by foreign lenders), it will not be difficult to get the party establishment's okay. But will it be that easy? There is already skepticism over the reform lobby's move to set up an 'independent evaluation office' (like IMF's IEO) under a director selected through a 'global search' process. Under the proposal, IEO will evaluate the aam aadmi and other flagship programmes. IEO will comprise business management experts, technocrats and the normal commercial evaluators.

Will this include foreigners as well? No one seems to know as yet. However, as per the proposal, IEO will report its findings to a 'governing council' headed by Planning Commission deputy chairman Montek Ahluwalia. Influential sections in Congress fear that such secret moves will hijack Sonia's aam aadmi and fix into World Bank schemes. This will rob her of her popular halo. Their fears are confirmed by the recent PMO decision to assign evaluation of the New Pension Scheme to Asian Development Bank (ADB). Patterned on foreign models, NPS has so far proved a big flop.

If Yojana Bhavan's plans bear fruit, we will soon have the valuable advice of more foreign experts. An eight-member World Bank team was here to tell Delhi's civic bodies how they should improve the water supply, sanitation and transport. They have suggested a 'smart card project' to the municipal corporation. Smarter than Nandan Nilekani's Rs. 1.5 lakh crore Unique Identification Number? An old Congress veteran narrated a story of how this 'foreigners-alone-know' mindset had put us in trouble in 1960s.

While taking a round of Chhatarpur village in Delhi, a Ford Fundation team was aghast to see villagers burning cow dung as fuel and destroying the vital manure. Soon a massive government campaign was launched to stop the practice. But officials realised the folly when green and forests around began getting alarmingly denuded. In principle, Congress men are not against IMF or World Bank assistance. What perturbs them is their loans for sanitation, water supply and roads may be tied with conditionalities of privatisation. Already, growing public anger over the privatized power supply in Delhi has badly hurt the ruling party. Privatisation of water and sanitation will make it worse. Now a two-billion dollar loan for PSU banks, which really do not need it, has been announced along with another loan for water supply in Andhra Pradesh. With what sort of conditionalities will the loans come? The PM's moves are being watched with such fears. (IPA Service)