New Delhi : The secret has hardly been well kept. But any doubts that finance minister Pranab Mukherjee is the man who really makes the wheels of government run has been settled by a reply to a parliamentary question that reveals he heads all but one empowered GoMs set up by UPA 2.

A question put up by Rajya Sabha MP Jai Prakash Narayan had asked the Cabinet secretariat to detail how many e-GoMs and GoMs had been set up, their subjects and who headed them. The question was restricted to UPA 2 though there could be GoMs from UPA 1 that did not conclude their business and simply lapsed.

Mukherjee heads E-GoMs on 3G spectrum, procurement and management of food grains, price band of shares held by government in PSUs, management of drought, the Ratnagiri gas and power project, gas pricing, implementation of national highways development project, ultra mega power projects and mass rapid transit system.

The only E-GoM Mukherjee does not head is one on tsunami rehabilitation programme which is headed by home minister P Chidambaram.

The finance minister and UPA 2's "Mr Fixit" heads most of GoMs also, being in-charge of 15, but shares the burden of 34 such groups more evenly with colleagues home minister P Chidambaram, defence minister A K Antony and agriculture minister Sharad Pawar. Chidambaram heads nine GoMs while Antony superintends four. Pawar looks after a few and some others are headed by ministers like Jaipal Reddy and Sushil Kumar Shinde,

Mukherjee's ministerial colleagues marvel at the minister's ability to juggle engagements to conduct meetings of GoMs and E-GoMs looking at complex issues that need detailed study. Particularly in the case of E-GoMs which as empowered groups, can take decisions that do not need to be referred to the full cabinet for approvals.

The dependence of UPA 1 and 2 on GoMs to sort out contending points of view is well documented and it is quite usual for differences expressed in meetings of the Union Cabinet seeing the subject of contention being swiftly referred to a GoM. The norm is seen to have the advantage of more considered thought though it is also seen reflective of the cabinet not being able to clinch issues.