It is nobody's case that the Planning Commission was flawless. It had many problems and had been long neglected. It could and should have been reformed, not shut down
It is ironic that, even as Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced the scrapping of the Planning Commission, the US Government is seriously considering plans to set up a similar plan panel. Both decisions, though diametrically opposite to each other, seem to be driven by the same force: Improve the federal sprit of the country. The ambivalence of free economy policy planning is intriguing all over the world, as it often cripples the basic foundational tenets of a neo-liberal economy.
Few will disagree that in the last few decades the Planning Commission had moved away from its mandated commitment to the mixed economy vision. In the process, it had scuttled the rationale for its own existence. Since the liberalisation of the economy in 1991, the commission has failed to evolve according to the needs of our policymakers.
In the 1980s, Rajiv Gandhi became the first Prime Minister to hammer on the linear and stodgy functional style of the Planning Commission. At that time, the seventh Five-Year Plan, for the period between 1985 and 1990, was under development. Mr Manmohan Singh was its Deputy Chairman. In response to some counter-arguments from the then Deputy Chairman, the Prime Minister had called the Planning Commission a “bunch of jokers”. This hurt Mr Singh terribly and almost led him to resign from the panel.
Successive Governments at the Centre were headed by moderate politicians who didn’t refute the greater claim of political compulsion and pitched for economic planning accordingly. Thus, the Planning Commission survived the irrational annual plan discussions and other extremes. What made matters worse was the falling standards of research inputs. The commission relied too much on data from questionable sources. Also, it often did not deliver reports on time to fulfill the policymaking demands of the Government.
In the process, the federal spirit suffered the most. The culture of self-introspection had also dissipated within the Union Government.
Now that the Modi Government is planning to replace the commission, possibly with a panel that is more supportive of economic reforms, it would be worthwhile to recall that the Planning Commission was not exactly based upon the vision of Jawaharlal Nehru or the iconic PC Mahalanobis.
Indeed, it was Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose who stressed on the idea of a ‘National Planning Commission’ at the Congress’s Haripura session in February 1938. Netaji spoke with an independent mind and did not follow the Congress line on this issue. Clearly, his argument was nationalistic than ideological.
The concept of planning per se cannot be irrelevant for any set of systems — hence, scrapping the institution hardly makes any sense. Instead, the commission should have been restructured keeping in mind the requirements of the present. Sadly, both the UPA1 and 2 miserably failed to even acknowledge the ills of Planning Commission, let alone make any effort of to improve its functioning.
The Modi Government had a fair opportunity to streamline the system by introducing some essential changes in its functions related to the States, funds allocations and internal working mechanism. But instead of imbibing those changes, which would have made the panel accountable to ‘federal spirits’, the Government’s decision to simply scrap the outfit does not bode well.
The Planning Commission was among the few modern temples of democracy in India, which defined our goals post-independence. Except for odd patches, it sought to align political goals with the social and economic aspirations that surfaced in the process of making India a nation-state.
With income disparities growing all around, it is a matter of grave concern that an institution like the Planning Commission will cease to exist. True, Congress Governments at the Centre have not given this institution the attention it deserved since the 1970s, but that doesn’t make any room for ideological friction.
Precious little is known about the new plan model but it seems like the replacement panel will be differing with the intent of existing secondary and tertiary national planning processes. Most likely, the new body will have no overseeing authority to evaluate programme implementation. So, unlike the apprehension shown, the fact is that the Planning Commission, having rights to Centre-State mediation, was not notionally against the federal structure of the country.
Nevertheless, if the new institution can set things right, there is no reason why the Planning Commission could not have been rebuilt. Awarding it capital punishment for a few wrongs committed in the past is being confused with the idea of justice. It is imperative to reconsider the decision to close Planning Commission or else a selected few may end up deciding the fate of 1.2 billion Indians.