Why India needs to revive Planning Commission to meet increased developmental challenges

By Bharat Dogra 

In the course of its long and inspiring freedom movement India not only fought against British colonial rule, but also gave much thought to the kind of development effort that would be needed after independence to resolve the many-sided socio-economic challenges, led by widespread poverty, the country faced. From this discussion emerged the idea that India should opt for planned economic development assisted by development plans prepared for a certain period, one plan to be followed by another plan. Jawaharlal Nehru and Subhash Chandra Bose were two prominent leaders of the freedom movement who were more involved with this.

After independence, despite all the massive disruptions and violence caused by the very unfortunate partition of the country, India hastened to set up the Planning Commission and prepare the first five year plan, to be followed by subsequent plans. The result was evident sooner than expected as India could set up important capital goods industries and infrastructure projects, even a nuclear energy program and space program. The country moved fast towards progress in meeting important needs like medicines. 

This is not to say that mistakes were not made. India’s own special contribution to development thinking in the form of some of the ideas associated with Mahatma Gandhi, such as the concept of gram swaraj or self-reliant village communities, did not get as much attention as this should have received, and not with the kind of innovative spirit and sincerity that was needed, and this was a big loss.

On the whole, however, the path of planned economic development guided by the Planning Commission served India well. In due course various states of India set up their own state-level planning units to prepare state plans which were coordinated with the national plan.

With only a small break caused by some disruptive factors, India was able to complete 11 five-year plans and the 12th Five Year Plan 2012-17 was also prepared. Even the small break was sought to be filled by annual plans, an indication of India’s commitment to planned economic development.

When the 12th five-year plan was in progress, before it could be completed, in 2014 the Planning Commission was dissolved hurriedly and the process of preparing five-year plans to guide the development of the country came to an abrupt halt.

This came at a time when due to increasing international challenges, increasing inequalities, pressures from the richest elites and the uncertainties and difficulties created by climate change and other serious environmental problems the need for planned economic development at the national, state and local levels was increasing. No credible reasons were given for the withdrawal of the five year plans.

This writer has been repeatedly arguing since then that this has been a significant national loss, and there is urgent need to revive the Planning Commission and the planning process to cope with increasing development challenges in difficult times. Unfortunately, while this demand is highly justified, in the middle of several other controversies, this has not received the kind of support and national attention that this should have received. Meanwhile the statistical and factual base on the basis of which important decisions are being taken has also deteriorated and suffered. Hence the chances of arbitrary decisions being taken to suit powerful interests have increased, while chances of the decisions being guided by a longer-term planning framework and strong factual base and then being assessed on this basis before going ahead in a big way, have deceased. The ability of social movements to oppose the harmful impacts of any such decisions on people and environment, and to press for corrective changes, has also been reduced considerably.

All things considered, India’s socio-economic development will be greatly helped and strengthened, and chances of serious mistakes being made will be considerably diminished, if India revives the process of planned economic development guided by national and state-level planning commissions.

This is not to say there were no flaws in the previous planning process or in the planning commissions. In fact there was considerable room for improvement there. However instead of making improvements, the planning process was shut down very abruptly and suddenly. Now time is overdue to revive the planning process along with improving it further in various ways.

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The writer is Honorary Convener, Campaign to Save Earth Now. His recent books include When the Two Streams Met, Man over Machine, A Day in 2071, and Farming and Healthy Food