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to build on the strengths and tackle the
new challenges paying careful attention to
the management of the food economy and
the overall macro economy.
The Aam Aadmi are often pushed to
appreciate certain disappointment in
terms of the actual impact that Planning
Commission policies has at the ground
level. Most times, the outlays do not
translate into actual outcomes. Lots of
rational and well-intentioned policies are
proposed by the Planning Commission,
but the corresponding impact is not felt
because of a myriad of implementation
problems and mismatch of incen-
tives that become apparent as one spends
more time in the Planning Commission.
It is often viewed that not only is pub-
lic reasoning, including open public arguments,
central to the emergence and
practice of democracy, the history of
public reasoning is spread right widely
across the world. While democracy is not
without success in India, its achievements
are still far short of what public
reasoning can do in a democratic society,
if it addresses less conspicuous deprivations
such as endemic hunger. This is
what Shri Amartya Sen has to say.
As India’s topmost internationally acclaimed
economists opine that in the
confrontation between a large and a
small India, the broader understanding
can certainly win. But the victory for the
broad idea of India cannot be stable unless
those fi ghting for the larger conception
know what they are fi ghting
for. The reach of Indian traditions,
including heterodoxy and the celebration
of plurality and scepticism, requires
a comprehensive recognition. Cognizance
of India’s dialogic traditions is
important for an adequate understanding
of the capacious idea of India.
Prof. Amartya Sen has gone on
record to say that primary education
alone can save a country in the long run.
Conclusion
Success of Planning Commission which
has been systematically given a characteristic
shift to be a “Reforms Commission”
would largely depend making a
policy framework that would facilitate
T RANSFORMATIVE PLANNING
PAIS should emerge as a next step
after the RTI as a vital fi rst step toward
improvement of public accountability
effi cient production & regulation; secondly,
an independent professional
regulatory system that promotes competition
& minimizes regulatory costs,
thirdly, institutional innovation that
breaks/reverses the deteriorating trend
in effi ciency & governance and lastly,
government investment focused on public
& quasi-public goods with the highest
social return. And that can effectively be
achieved if we should fully explore the
scope for Private Public Partnership
(PPP) benefi ting the Aam Aadmi.
It is also suggested that Public Accountability
Information System (PAIS)
should emerge as a next step after the
Right to Information Act which is a vital
fi rst step toward improvement of public
accountability aiming to provide information
to the targeted population about
all major program and to empower the
target benefi ciaries to put up their own
evaluation of the program alongside the
government provided data & information
which may be patterned on Amazon
Books strategy, geographically multilevel,
multi-layered system.
And it is graciously felt, if followed
diligently, “decommissioning” the Planning
Commission by way of PPP model
as suggested and felt as above, would
ensure long term successful implementation
of Constitutional goals containing in
its Preamble, the Fundamental Rights
and the Directive Principles.
(The views expressed in the write-up are
personal and do not reflect the offi cial
policy or position of the organization.)
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