Prime Minister Narendra Modi donned his second hat as chairperson of the National Disaster Management Authority (NDMA) to impose a nationwide lockdown on March 24. The unfolding COVID-19 pandemic is rapidly emerging as the biggest test of his prime ministership. His response mechanism to it has been a variation of the highly-centralised bureaucracy-focused system of governance that he introduced to Raisina Hill in his first term beginning in May 2014. An informal COVID-19 task force set up on March 29 and which directly operates under the PM is the command and control set-up for executing the government’s responses. This task force, with handpicked bureaucrats and key officials, operates around the powerful Prime Minister’s Office in South Block.

The prime minister has in recent years preferred to operate out of 7, Lok Kalyan Marg, a 12-acre office-cum-residential complex with manicured lawns and fountains, rather than his office in South Block. Modi works out of his spacious office in bungalow no. 7. It is from here that he directly controls his COVID-19 task force--holding weekly teleconferences with chief ministers and meeting key officials in the task force. These include cabinet secretary Rajiv Gauba, health secretary Pritee Sudhan and home secretary Ajay Bhalla. Three officers--principal secretary to the PM, P.K. Mishra; principal advisor to the PM, P.K. Sinha; and newly-appointed secretary to PM, Amarjeet Sinha--play a key role. As rural development secretary, Sinha had played a key role in overseeing the implementation of the Modi government’s developmental schemes in rural areas.

The COVID-19 task force is multifaceted and deals with all aspects of the crisis. It collates information from the two important groups set up by the government--one of ministers and another of secretaries. However, the PM has the final say in each and every decision after the information is collated and placed before him for advice. "Most instructions come from the PM," says a secretary-level officer. "Even in technical matters, his vision and knowledge are exemplary. We always feel he is ahead of us."

Modi himself works the phone lines every day, reportedly making more than four dozen calls to experts and common but influential citizens, seeking their counsel and holding out hope in this hour of crisis.

Last week, the PM dialed Parakram Singh Jadeja, CMD of an engineering company Jyoti CNC, which has a unit in France, and asked him to try his hand at manufacturing indigenous ventilators. Modi knew of Jadeja’s sophisticated Computer Numerical Control (CNC) unit from his days as Gujarat chief minister. Jadeja has already started manufacturing ventilators, reportedly making 100 machines a day at fraction of the cost of regular machines.

Reporting to the PM’s task force are Vivek Paul, NITI Aayog member for health, and Balram Bhargava, secretary, health research, and also director-general of the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR). Another key official in this grid is K. Vijay Raghavan, principal scientific advisor to the government, whose experience as a developmental biologist comes in handy in this crisis.

The task force gets its inputs from the control room of the Union ministry for home affairs, which constantly briefs it on developments on the coronavirus front in districts. On March 29, for instance, the task force already knew that the Bangad hospital in Bhilwara had become a COVID-19 hot spot, affecting doctors and healthcare staff alike. This news, delivered from the home ministry control room, reached the task force even before the state government could formally convey it.

The PMO also gets its inputs from a group of Ministers (GoM) headed by Rajnath Singh. The Union minister for defence reviews the current status of, and actions for, the prevention and management of the coronavirus pandemic.

The government’s public interface includes the daily press briefing at the National Media Centre. The briefings are given by Lav Agarwal, joint secretary in the health ministry, ICMR DG Bhargava, ICMR chief scientist R. Gangakhedkar, home ministry spokesperson P.S. Srivastava and K.S. Dhatwalia, director-general of the Press Information Bureau. The press meet presents both the macro and the micro picture of the national fight against COVID-19.

The armed forces form another key flank in the task force. General Bipin Rawat, Chief of Defence Staff and also the permanent Chairman Chiefs of Staffs Committee, is the government’s point person in the coordination of the three armed forces. Gen. Rawat’s headquarters, the Integrated Defence Staff (IDS), handles the requisitioning of warships, aircraft and helicopters from the three services. The military medical infrastructure, which includes quarantine facilities, has been placed on stand-by in case the crisis worsens.

Apart from appointing Union ministers as guardian ministers of specific states at the macro level, the government has also appointed another ministerial committee for handling affairs at the micro level. It comprises 15 ministers who have been given charge of specific corona-affected and suspected districts.

Rajnath Singh, for example, is in charge of 20 districts in Uttar Pradesh, transport minister Nitin Gadkari and HRD minister Prakash Javadekar of Maharashtra, finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman of 13 in Andhra Pradesh, foreign minister S. Jaishankar of 23 in West Bengal, commerce and industry minister Piyush Goyal of 20 in Tamil Nadu and petroleum minister Dharmendra Pradhan of Odisha. Familiarity with the region is one of the criterion in the selection as is the personality of the candidates. The straight-talking Jaishankar was given charge of West Bengal for smooth coordination with state’s mercurial chief minister, Mamata Banerjee.



The ministerial committee works in tandem with the secretary-level committee. Short but crisp reports on all important developments and key issues are placed before the prime minister all through the day for directions. It is he who takes the final decisions after seeking advice from all committees.

The prime minister has brought his clinical approach to bear on the task force. It was evident in the manner Indian citizens were flown back from Iran and Italy with medical staff on board and then quarantined at the airport itself. Or in the special training imparted to 15,000 new nurses in a matter of days to address a dire shortage in healthcare staff and the use of rail and air network to keep the movement of essential supplies going.

Still bigger decisions are around the corner. Whether or not to extend the lockdown post April 14. Either way, the role of the Modi-led grouping is only set to become more pronounced in the days ahead.

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