by Harish Gupta, National Editor, Lokmat Group
￭ Non-NDA states back Modi
￭ Cong, TMC oppose ￭ SP, JD (U) cautious
The exclusive story on what
Prime Minister Narendra Modi is going to do with the
Planning Commission and how it will be revamped was
first published on August 4 in Lokmat.
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Harish Gupta
New Delhi, Dec. 7
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After abolishing the 64-year- old Planning Commission in August this year, Prime Minister Narendra Modi offered an olive branch to states by making them active partners in the revamped National Planning & Reforms Commission. (NPRC).
Though the old body has not been renamed as yet till the time of going to the press, the PM signalled that he had received lakhs of suggestions on the issue through various portals.
However, Maharashtra chief minister Devendra Fadnavis suggested the name of the revamped body which was a signal what the NDA wants.
But the deliberations with the chief ministers showed that the Congress and some of the like-minded parties are not ready to accept winding up of the body created by India's first Prime Minister in March 1950.
But some of the non-NDA states Tamil Nadu (AIADMK), Odisha (BJD), Telangana (TRS) & North-Eastern states gave Modi reasons to smile. Majority of chief ministers supported the idea of revamping the commission making Modi to say at the end of the conference that it was a "fruitful" exercise.
It is pertinent to mention that Lokmat was the first newspaper to publish the report after Modi came to power that the Planning Commission would wound up.
In the 30-page presentation made during the day-long first-of-its kind interaction with 29 chief ministers at his 7 Race Course residence, the Prime Minister passionately said how the new revamped body would do wonders for the economy & growth of the country as it would like "Team India".
Giving detailed account of what had gone into the decision of abolishing the Planning Commission and restructuring the same was aimed at promoting "cooperative federalism".
The presentation trashed the old concept of the Planning Commission thoroughly by saying that the commission was fundamentally a Central government institution where states had no role; the approach paper had to be approved by the Cabinet and the Five-Year Plan needed Cabinet approval. There was virtually no role to states.
The Prime Minister tried hard to woo even the Congress chief ministers during his opening remarks recalling that even the former Prime Minister Dr Manmohan Singh himself had noted that the body has no futuristic vision in the post-reform period. Dr. Singh also wanted the Planning Commission to reinvent.
The role had been repeatedly questioned for more than two decades.
The first introspection was done after the launch of economic reforms in 1992. Even in 2012, the Parliamentary Consultative Committee stressed on the need for a serious look at the Planning Commission and the need for a new body to replace it.
Modi also noted that in countries such as the USA, think tanks that function independently of the government have a major role in policy-making.
A formal announcement about revamping commission is likely to be made later.
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