Institutional reforms key to growth, inclusion: Maira

Planning Commission member Arun Maira has said the country needed a plan to accelerate progress on all the three tracks - economic growth, social inclusion and environmental sustainability - simultaneously. However, histories of other nations as well as India’s own recent experience have shown this trinity is not easy to realise, according to him.

While the goal of the 12th Five Year Plan was faster, inclusive and sustainable growth, the country was far from this aspirational goal. The challenges in achieving these goals had become much more complex with the growing mistrust of citizens in the institutions of government and also in the institutions of business, he said while delivering a CC Desai memorial lecture at the Administrative Staff College of India here recently.

“To make the Indian system work better, to get faster growth, which must also be more equitable and sustainable, it is no longer enough to announce bit-ticket economic reforms,” he said while stressing the need for institutional reforms so that institutions have the capacity to catch up with demands that economic reforms are imposing on them.

For the reforms to be supported and then implemented, citizens must have more confidence in the country's institutions, he said.

Maira also suggested a further qualitative shift in the centralised planning system adopted by the country while stating that managing a diverse and complex system through standardisation and measurement would not work.

The inadequacy of the processes for people’s participation in democratic deliberations also became clear during the recent anti-corruption movement and, therefore, deepening of democracy beyond the conduct of elections also required to catch up with the times, he said.