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T RANSFORMATIVE PLANNING
Decommissioning the
Planning Commission
Basic Structure theory and directive principles of state policy to a Public-Private-
Partnership (PPP) model through the Public Accountability Information System
(PAIS) or Right To Information (RTI) route
Rabin Majumder
Advocate & Attorney,
Nu.Delhi.Law.Fora,
New Delhi
British Raj sponsored program
called Planning Commission
ever since its inception
in 1930s has been fairly
doing well until 1991. However, under
compulsion of BoP crisis, subsequently,
India had to adopt economic reforms in
1991 which, in effect, embarked upon a
program of short term stabilization combined
with a longer term program of
comprehensive structural reforms responding
to the need for a system
change, involving liberalization of government
controls, a larger role for the
private sectors and greater integration
and synchronization with the world
economy. And the obvious natural corollary
is that, as some experts put it, Planning
Commission changed its naming
characteristic into “Reforms Commission”.
In the recent past ever since reforms,
Indian polity and policy have
witnessed a major shift from long patronized
mixed economy to open-market
survival kit thereby changing Planning
Commission perspectives from a symbol
of power to what it is often referred to as
‘Reforms Commission’ that it acts more
as an internal consultant to most central
and state ministries and thus hosts a
number of seniors bureaucrats, cabinet
ministers, chief ministers, industrialists
etc on a regular basis.
As Shri Montack Singh Ahluwalia puts
it “the compulsions of democratic politics
in a pluralist society made it necessary
to evolve a suffi cient consensus
across disparate (and often very vocal)
interests before policy changes could be
implemented and this meant that the
pace of reforms was often frustratingly
slow… .” It is often opined that economic
policy issues by its nature are
controversial since it is the common
knowledge that it is not a zero-sum game
and hence, differences do exist, qualitatively
and quantum-wise across the political
spectrum. That is probably democracy
which India witnesses.
From the beginning of end of British
Raj until 1991, the economy was characterized
by extensive regulation, protectionism,
public ownership, pervasive
corruption and slow growth. A revival of
economic reforms and better economic
policy in 2000s accelerated India's eco-
Revival of economic reforms & better
economic policy in 2000s accelerated
India's economic growth rate
THE INDIA ECONOMY REVIEW
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