Trump Offers Lessons for Modi to Cut Craze for Govt Consultants
US President Donald Trump & PM Narendra Modi (Image credit X.com)
US Scraps Contracts worth $2 billion for ‘PowerPoint’ Consultants
By Manish Anand
New Delhi, February 26: On February 16, Department of Telecommunication opened a bid for hiring a social media agency. The contract was for two-year term. The cost will be ₹5.50 crores. The job will be creation of social media contents.
Hiring social media consultants through contract is a new norm at the Centre. Prime Minister Narendra Modi at the helm of the government has seen a sharp focus of Ministries on social media presence.
The tender floated by the DoT listed the subject as “Hiring of Social Media Agency – Content creation, content response and content moderation, campaign management, response management/Helpdesk support, basic reporting and analytics, training and capacity building of internal staff”.
Officials in the government stated that the DoT tender is a model that is floated by ministries for social media footprints. The cost for two-year comes at ₹5.50 crores per the DoT tender.
While Ministries in the Central government contract out social media consultants, the state governments are also believed to have been copying the Centre with zeal. Besides, the corridors of the ministries buzz with consultants of various hues. They are believed to be the key support of the bureaucrats.
The US, in contrast, is throwing such consultants out after Donald Trump assumed charge of the country. The US yesterday cancelled contracts for consultants worth $2 billion in department for veterans.
US Secretary of Veterans Affairs Dough Collins announced that $2 billion worth contracts for preparing “power point presentations” will be cancelled. “We found nearly $2 billion in department for veterans’ contracts that we’ll be cancelling. There will be no more paying consultants to do things like make Power Point slides and write meeting minutes,” said Collins.
He further stated that a report in the document found out that “we were taking millions of contracts and dollars in contracts to create things like PowerPoint slide and meeting minutes”. To the employees, he gave a stern message, saying: “Folks, if you don’t know how to run PowerPoint slides, learn. It’s a tutorial on your computer. Take your own notes. I’ll send you one of my pencils if you need one. But we’re not paying millions of dollars for consultants to do this for us.”
“Millions of dollars in contracts for coaching and training! If you need coaching and training, that’s what you have in a supervisor. And if your supervisor can’t coach and train you, then I tell you what, let me know. I’ll come help you,” said Collins.
It’s worth mentioning that the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting has an army of information officials in the Press Information Bureau (PIB). Besides, a casual observation of just one floor at the Niti Aayog may reveal the strength of the consultants who are hired for “executive support, training, and other roles” which riled up Collins.
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