#ModiSpeech in Red Fort: 5 messages to babus of the corridors of power

PM Modi interacting with school children after his I-Day address 

DOES every GoI secretary have his or her own fiefdom? Or how less (or more) capable a government peon is, if compared to cabinet secretary’s power? And, is there a difference between a “job” in private sector and “service” in government? A day after prime minister Narendra Modi’s hour-long extempore speech in Red Fort on the occasion of 68th Independence Day, BoI presents here excerpts of the speech that relates to babudom:

1. I have been quite isolated from the elite class of this place (Delhi) but during the last two months while being an outsider, I had an insider view and I was astonished…It seemed as if dozens of separate governments are running at the same time in one main government. It appeared that everyone has its own fiefdom. I could observe disunity and conflict among them. One department is taking on the other department and taking on to the extent that two departments of the same government are fighting against each other by approaching Supreme Court.
2. I have started making efforts at making the government, not an assembled entity, but an organic unity, an organic entity, a harmonious whole- with one aim, one mind, one direction, one energy.
3. Today in the face of global competition, when we have to realize the dreams of millions of Indians, the country cannot run on the lines of “it happens”, “it goes”. In order to fulfil the aspirations of masses, we have to sharpen the tool called the government machinery, we have to make it keen, more dynamic, and it is in this direction that we are working.
4. The people in the government are very capable - from the peon to the cabinet secretary, everybody is capable, everybody has a power, they have experience. I want to awaken that power, I want to unite that power and want to accelerate the pace of the welfare of nation through that power and I shall definitely do it.
5. …when I ask a person in private job, he tells that he does the job; when you ask the same from a person in government job, he says that I do the service. Both earn, but for one it is job while for the other it is service. I ask a question from all brothers and sisters in government service, whether the word “service” has not lost its strength, its identity?