“Micromanager in chief” this is how the Wall Street Journal described Prime Minister Narendra Modi in a March 2017 article, a few months after he announced the demonetisation of Rs 1,000 and Rs 500 currency notes.
The article described how Modi took this decision almost unilaterally, consulting only a handful of close advisers, keeping much of the government in the dark.
A related allegation that is often made against Prime Minister Narendra Modi is that his policies – like demonetisation and the Goods and Services Tax – end up increasing bureaucratic control and interference, going against his own principle of “minimum government, maximum governance.”
This trend appears to have continued well into the first year of Modi’s second term in office. And his “stimulus package” to deal with the aftermath of the COVID-19 crisis is a case in point.
In the five tranches or sets of announcements, one could count as many as 58 different measures.
These measures range from an immediate measure like free food grain supply to migrants to something as unrelated as “opening up future exploration in inter-planetary travel to private players”.