After 2024 Report Card, Ministers Get Ready for Work on New Year's Day

Shreya Jai, Sanjeeb Mukherjee, Dhruvaksh Saha, Harsh Kumar, Subhayan Chakraborty & Sanket Koul

- Shreya Jai, Sanjeeb Mukherjee, Dhruvaksh Saha, Harsh Kumar, Subhayan Chakraborty & Sanket Koul

This time, the New Year's Eve in the government corridors was quieter than usual. Public events, which are typically organised to showcase achievements of the government on the last day of the year, were absent because of the seven-day national mourning for former prime minister Manmohan Singh. Instead, the action had shifted online with a rush of social media messages from the government, including from Prime Minister Narendra Modi. Ranging from manufacturing strides in India to wins in the Olympics arena, the multiple report cards of the government looked back at 2024 as a year of achievements. However, for some time on Tuesday, several government websites were down due to a power outage at a data centre of the National Informatics Centre Services, disrupting the work.

Although the talk about the New Year agenda within the government was subdued on December 31, the day started with promise of work in 2025. There was an announcement of a Union Cabinet meeting on January 1, making it clear that ministers would have to be at work the morning of the new year. It's the same for bureaucrats, who need to be around for any Cabinet-related input. A senior official, who was out of town, said he was returning to New Delhi by the night of December 31. There was no other option, party or no party. In fact, the Narendra Modi government has regularly held Cabinet meetings on the first working day of the year.

Many top ministers were at work on the New Year's Eve. For instance, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman remained occupied with office meetings related to the Union Budget on the last day of 2024, a source said. She was also busy preparing for the Cabinet meeting on January 1, it is learnt.