Despite their initial reluctance to submit to the Finance Ministry's so-called "austerity drive", the Union Cabinet ministers are gradually showing their readiness to fall in line with the government's cost-cutting campaign, which includes ministerial-expenditure-related guidelines.

While the Finance Minister, Pranab Mukherjee, himself led his government's "austerity drive" with his recent fight to Kolkata in a budget airline's economy class, the initially-hesitant External Affairs Minister, S M Krishna - who had been ticked off for his five-star hotel stay in Delhi - decided to travel in a commercial flight for his trip to Belarus and Turkmenistan.

Moreover, the fact that the "austerity drive" is gathering momentum is evident from the Sunday decision of the Agriculture minister and NCP bigwig, Sharad Pawar - who earlier questioned the rationale behind the move - to fly economy class in a routine commercial flight from Mumbai to Delhi.

Other ministers to comply with the new guidelines included Heavy Industries' Minister Vilasrao Deshmukh, who traveled from Delhi to Mumbai in budget airline SpiceJet; and Power Minister Sushilkumar Shinde, who flew economy on Air India to Delhi on Saturday.

The leaders who already supported the Finance Minister's drive, against the flamboyant display of wealth and state power, included Civil Aviation Minister Praful Patel; Railway Minister Mamata Banerjee; Minister of State for Health Dinesh Trivedi; and Minister of State for Environment Jairam Ramesh.