Prime Minister Narendra Modi is set to seek suggestions from state chief ministers this Sunday on how to replace the Planning Commission, the centralised planning body that presides over allocation of Union government resources for Plan expenditure to states.
The idea is to modernise the over-60-year-old institution giving state administrators adequate say in resource allocation. Making a brief intervention during Question Hour in Lok Sabha, Modi said he would engage knowledgeable people and those who could provide new ideas to restructure the planning body.
“I have convened a meeting of chief ministers on December 7. We will have detailed discussions with them. In the Planning Commission also there had been discussions earlier on how to bring it in tune with the changing times. Taking all these aspects into consideration, plans are afoot towards a new shape (for the planning body),” Modi said.
The finance ministry has allocated R5.75 lakh crore for plan spending in the current fiscal, up from R4.75 lakh crore in 2013-14.
Minister for planning Rao Inderjit Singh told the Lower House earlier in the day that the commission has to come to grips with emerging social realities and reinvent itself to make itself more relevant and effective. Singh said government is seized of the desirability of a constant review of its planning apparatus as the role of the states as well as the state economy, both have been undergoing changes over the last few decades.
