Never send incorrect stuff to the PM!

You cannot send the boss stuff that is inaccurate and think you will get away with it: especially when the boss happens to be the country's prime minister.

Prime Minister Manmohan Singh is upset with some of the 15 senior Union secretaries to Government of India for sending material to him for his speeches without proper vetting or processing.

The Prime Minister's Office has dashed off a letter to the 125 Union secretaries warning them against sending 'material' and 'draft speeches' without applying thought or without examining the content of the draft speeches for lack of quality and inaccuracies.

The letter was sent by the PM's Principal Secretary T K A Nair.

Sources say that never before has the PMO issued such a dictum. This also hints at the prime minister's concern over the talent of the officers who hold such exalted positions in the government.

And the genesis of this letter can be traced to a recent conference on 'Health for All,' where Manmohan Singh was delivering a speech. Unfortunately, it was a matter of embarrassment as the figures that the prime minister reeled out at the conference were wrong. And the data for the speech had come from the health ministry.

Annoyed at this lapse, Nair has instructed the secretaries in-charge of various ministries 'to personally vet the draft speech/materials submitted to the Prime minister and also ensure that the policy statements or proposals that can be included in the speech have been duly processed and approved at the competent levels.'

'Whenever the Prime Minister accepts an invitation to participate at an official function, the Ministry concerned is required to send information pertaining to the event and the draft of his speech, or inputs for it to the Prime Minister's Office. Over a period of time it has been observed that the materials as well as the draft of the speech sent by the Ministries are often being put together in a routine manner without any thought being given to their quality and accuracy,' Nair adds in the letter.

'As you would readily appreciate, the Prime Minister's speech should not read like a routine report of the Ministry nor should it be a mere compilation of facts,' the letter further states.

Photograph: The letter written by the prime minister's Principal Secretary T K A Nair.