Finalise Cabinet Notes On Time Or Face Consequences: Govt Warns Ministries Over Delays | Exclusive

Last Updated:February 19, 2026, 11:11 IST

CNN-News18 has accessed a copy of the letter from the Cabinet Secretariat which reflects the frustration of the top office with ministries not finalising Cabinet notes in time

Pull up your socks or your score in the ‘Administrative Score Card’ will suffer — the Cabinet Secretariat has warned all ministries in a latest communique issued on February 12.

CNN-News18 has accessed an exclusive copy of the letter from the Cabinet Secretariat which reflects the frustration of the top office with ministries not finalising Cabinet notes in time and not updating a portal in real-time on the status of inter-ministerial consultations over a Cabinet proposal.

“Such delays on feeding dates on the IMC (Inter Ministerial Consultation) module will also result in showing huge pendency on the part of ministries/departments and will also affect score of the Ministries/Departments in the Administrative Score Card," the letter says.

A 100-point ‘Administrative Score Card’ was introduced by the Cabinet Secretariat last year to create a ‘healthy competition’ between ministries and rank them on performance on various parameters, a top government official told CNN-News18.

A key part of a Ministry’s job is to prepare Cabinet notes in a timely and professional manner.

“In spite of these clear instructions for time bound finalisation of Cabinet/Cabinet Committee notes, it has been observed that in many cases, this process is not being completed within the stipulated time-frame of 7/14/21 days, delaying the decision-making process for important policies, programmes, and schemes of the Government," the latest letter has highlighted.

The letter also said that while conveying these revised timelines earlier, it was stated that a new module, namely ‘Inter-Ministerial Consultations’ (IMC), has been activated for the purpose of monitoring and reviewing the delays and pendency occurring at various stages in finalisation of Cabinet and CCEA notes.

“For effective working of this Module, it is mandatory that Ministries and Departments concerned fill accurate dates at every stage of transmission of Cabinet and Cabinet Committee notes, such as date of dispatching hard copy of the note by the sponsoring Ministry or Department, date of receipt of the note by the recipient Ministry or Department, date of sending comments by the Ministry or Department consulted to the sponsoring one, date of receipt of comments by the sponsoring Ministry or Department, and dates of sending single note/final note by the sponsoring Ministry or Department to this Secretariat," the letter says.

“However, it has been observed that Ministries/Departments concerned are not entering dates related to transmission of notes on the module promptly and accurately, leading to difficulty in monitoring of delays in Inter-Ministerial consultation process," the Cabinet Secretariat says.

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