Jitters For Planning Commission Under Narendra Modi Regime

The pangs have started. Not the birth pangs of anything, but it could be the death throe. With Narendra Modi elected as the Prime Minister of India, the days of Planning Commission of India are said to be numbered.

The Modi government, which has minced no words about its stance on the Planning Commission, may either shut down the agency or change its style of functioning to make it more relevant to suit the increasingly open economy.

According to the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), to which Narendra Modi belongs, the Planning Commission is a body that needs a serious relook at its composition and its contribution to the Indian economy.

Uncomfortable questions about the Planning Commission had been raised by the previous UPA government as well, when the then Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and Finance Minister P Chidambaram said that the commission had to be ‘relooked at’ due to the changing economic developments at a global level. Manmohan Singh had emphasised on this need during the speech he delivered on his last days as the PM.

Former Finance Minister Chidambaram had gone a step further and called the Planning Commission a ‘big, flabby and unwieldy body’ that had to undergo some metamorphosis.

Now, with the new government at the Centre, the Independent Evaluation Office (IEO), headed by Ajay Chibber, submitted a report to Prime Minister Narendra Modi and stated that the Planning Commission was more of a roadblock than a propellant for the future of neo-India. The IEO was set up by the Planning Commission just over a year ago, aimed at assessing the effectiveness of government programmes, institutions and policies to make them robust in tune with the changing dynamics of socio-economic changes in the country.

“It is clear that the Planning Commission, in its current form and function, is a hindrance and not a help to India’s development. In my experience, it is not easy to reform such a large ossified body and would be better to replace it with a new body that is needed to assist the states in ideas, to provide long-term thinking and aid cross-cutting reforms…” Ajay Chibber said in his report to the PM. Somewhere along the report, which could be termed as a no-nonsense account of the significance of the Planning Commission, Chibber called it the ‘Control Commission,’ which wasn’t much of a benefit for the states, and in turn posed challenges to their independent growth. The report suggested that the PM should change the functioning of the Planning Commission by curtailing its powers and turning it into a non-interfering ‘think tank’ instead.

The new-found aversion towards the Planning Commission isn’t entirely recent. There had been instances in the past where leaders, cutting across party lines, criticised the working of the commission and the need to restrategise it or abandon it completely.

Narendra Modi’s BJP has often criticised the working of the Planning Commission and said it was outdated. Referring to the future of the commission, BJP spokesperson Shahnawaz Hussain said that organisations should “adjust to people.” He also said that his party would take a look at how the agencies – with direct reference to the Planning Commission – were working for the benefit of the people.

But this is probably not the comprehensive version of the new government’s concept of making planning, policies and governance better for the people. There is a section of political analysts who are dubbing this step as the most coherent and strong symbol of Modi’s determination to junk the Fabian-Socialist leaning of economic policies that entered the Indian psyche during the Nehru era.

Understandably, the role of the Planning Commission that was set up in 1950 should have been dynamic and complementary to India’s changing economic policies and market economy. The BJP has often questioned the relevance of an agency that has outlived its time and remained stagnant in its objectives.

Arun Shourie, a journalist-turned-BJP-member, derided the Planning Commission, calling it a “parking lot for political cronies and unwanted bureaucrats.” Logistically, the number of employees in this commission, which works from a stately building located in New Delhi, cross 500-600, with a huge budget being allocated for their salaries and maintenance. Focus had shifted towards this almost non-existent commission, which charted the growth of India with no pre-condition of adherence to its suggestions, when the body said that people who consumed food and other items costing more than Rs 27 were not poor. There were angry reactions to this from all over the country, with some politicians defending these words in vain.

Interestingly, Montek Singh Ahluwalia quit his post as the deputy chairman of the Planning Commission on May 17, just a day after results of the Lok Sabha polls were declared and the BJP swept it without a hitch. Ahluwalia also left his official residence and till date, no one has been appointed in his place. From the way it looks, there won’t be any attempt to fill this post by the new government.