The Chief Minister of Uttarakhand Harish Rawat has called upon for reorientation of Planning Commission with a statutory status to it. He strongly advocated the institution of Planning Commission and said that the decision to abolish the Planning Commission will adversely impact the interest of Himalayan and North Eastern States.
Rawat was expressing his views in the meeting of Chief Ministers with Prime Minister Narendra Modi at New Delhi on Sunday. He said that the sudden and unilateral decision by Prime Minister while delivering the Independence Day speech to disband the Planning Commission took everyone by surprise and the body is not a ‘socialist hangover’ as it is made out to be.
“In my considered opinion, the Planning Commission has played a stellar role in inclusive development of the country by providing a forum to such states to voice their concern and provided for resources allocation accordingly” he said.
The CM of Uttarakhand argued that it would have better if the States had been consulted before making an announcement of abolition of the commission.
Highlighting the importance of Planning Commission, Rawat said with the expansion of the role of the Private Sector, the system of planning came closer to that of indicative planning. Further, Planning Commission was the nodal entity in Government of India for Government-NGO interaction and there is no doubt that participation of people in planning is at the heart of both Planning and implementation.
He said that in the social sector, issues of women and children cannot be assigned to a single Ministry and any single Ministry on its own cannot bring down Infant Mortality Rate or Maternal Mortality Rate.
Rawat warned that the proposed move to distribute the functions of Planning Commission to Ministry of Finance and Subject Matter Ministries will only result in loss of overarching vision and perspective as the Ministries in their silos will not be able to appreciate anything beyond their own vision. He said that the difference in approach between Planning Commission and Finance Ministry was useful as it provided for checks and balances.
The Commission provided a forum for exchange of ideas and for discussion and it held the States accountable for their performance while the States demanded greater flexibility to meet their specificities.
The Finance Ministry or Subject Matter Ministries cannot perform this role. The CM said that we have moved away from a command and control eco-system for allocation of scarce resources to a system of creating facilitating mechanisms through policy interventions.
However, irrespective of the fact that we are part of the global economy, India is still a country where the fruits of development have not reached millions of people. This is precisely why planning is essential. Market forces cannot be allowed to decide the destiny of tribal, Scheduled Castes, Scheduled Tribes, minorities and other marginalised people.
Advocating the relevance of Planning Commission for Himalayan States, the CM said that the ecologically and strategically important Himalayan States including North-Eastern States need a hand holding from the Centre.
In particular, the Himalayan States have common problems relating to a large forest area, sensitive international border, proneness to natural calamities, weak financial resources due to restriction on use of natural resources like forest land and hydropower potential.
He said that according to a study done by lEAD India in collaboration with Indian Institute of Forest Management (IIFM) and the Central Statistical Office (CSO) it has been estimated that Uttarakhand forests alone are providing direct and indirect eco-system services worth `1,61,921 crore annually to the nation without any compensatory payment mechanism to the State.
The CM said that the Planning Commission was in the process of developing Environmental Performance Index (EPI) to incentivize States for environmental performances through budgetary allocation. The fate of these crucial and life and death issues for Himalayan and North Eastern States hangs in limbo with the abolition of Planning Commission.