Paswan, Javadekar, Nadda among non-performing ministers: Survey

New Delhi, April 30: Five union ministers namely Ram Vilas Paswan (Food), Bandaru Dattatreya (Labour), Radha Mohan Singh (Agriculture), J.P. Nadda (Health) and Prakash Javadekar (Environment) have failed public expectations, a survey has found.

The survey, however, has given Prime Minister Narendra Modi 6.2 marks on a scale 1 to 10.

Union ministers like Suresh Prabhu (Railways), Arun Jaitley (Finance), Sushma Swaraj (External Affairs), Rajnath Singh (Home) and Nitin Gadkari (Road Transport) stand out on the three parameters of "initiatives, interface and implementation", according to an independent study by Centre for Media Studies (CMS), which works in the field of social development, environment and media.

"Significant finding is that Prime Minister Modi is viewed differently for his different distinguishing roles and performance," the study says, adding while Prime Minister Modi gets 6.2 on the scale of 10, the BJP-led NDA government got only 5.5.

"Ram Vilas Paswan, Bandaru Dattatreya, Radha Mohan Singh, J.P. Nadda and Prakash Javadekar do not stand up to the expectations of larger public as per this independent assessment," it said adding among the ministries ranking low, overall, the ministry of Labour & Employment stood at the bottom.

Among the government schemes, the assessment study says, Jan Dhan, Swachh Bharat, Make in India and Digital India initiatives "have caught on with larger public". But poor performance has been reported about schemes like Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act, Smart City, and Food Security.

The survey report also quotes former Lok Sabha Secretary General Subhash C. Kashyap, who in the report's foreword, says the CMS study will "give direction to the national debate on whether the Modi government which came with a boom of fresh breeze has so far proved to be a boon or a bane".

Kashyap writes "public perception of service delivery in areas of health, education and employment as also in matters of corruption at the level of day to day public dealings may point towards imperatives of mid-course corrections".

"The results of the study seem to confirm that the personal image of Shri Modi as Prime Minister remains very bright," he wrote adding, in contrast to the UPA regime, "there have been no corruption scandals involving ministers".

"In coming years, Modi government would be better off to focus more on actionable citizen centric policies and initiatives, which in turn will bring much needed change in people's perception as well," the report said.

IANS