In a break from tradition, the Planning Commission, long perceived as a stickler to the top-down approach, is turning democratic. The commission has identified 12 key challenges to achieving a double-digit economic growth and is set to put this information in the public domain for a transparent discourse. This comes just as it has started preparation of the approach paper for the 12th Five-Year Plan (2012-17).
The topics on which public comments would be invited include corporatisation of railways, bringing technology to the farmer’s doorstep, how to reduce food and fertiliser subsidies and use the money saved for development of rural infrastructure, officials told FE.
The Plan panel is looking at an average growth rate of around 10% for the next Plan period, up from 8.1% in the current Plan as revised in the mid-term appraisal in March. While agriculture and infrastructure are two focus areas of the current Plan, the next plan would continue to lay emphasis on these sectors, along with finding solutions for the key challenges to growth.
The information would be put up on the commission’s website in a question format, the answers to which would the be part of the next Plan’s approach paper.
Through this exercise the commission is also going to moot some radical changes in policy making within the government and gauge their acceptability among the people. Some of the interesting questions that would be put up include the viability of corporatising the railways and the possibility of reducing food and fertiliser subsidy for improving rural infrastructure.
Explaining the process, principal adviser to the Planning Commission Pronab Sen told FE that making a five-year plan had become much wider in scope, which had prompted the commission to follow this exercise.
? Earlier plans were basically economic documents but this time round it would undergo change,? he said.
Sen added, ?There are myriad problems that need attention but there are no theoretical solutions. It needs a collaborative approach by the commission to go into the root of these issues,? he said.
Other important issues that the commission would flag include ways to stop ground water depletion due to the severe shortage in water supply, prevention of the emergence of slums in the cities and improving technology to benefit farmers in distress.
Sen said that the commission?s concept was an extension of the delphi model which refers to a management tool to increase consensus among people.
The exercise of identifying the top 12 challenges in the country was the result of brain storming by over 180 commission officials for three months. ?We had identified certain systemic issues affecting the country. After which we assigned each officer of the commission two broad areas to work upon. The final list is the result of that collaborative work,? Sen said. The list is expected to be put up on the planning commission by the end of the week after a final audit.