Outcome of schemes difficult to judge due to lack of timely data: Montek

Ahluwalia said if people want to raise issues they should do that with the Parliamentarians

To bring about accountability in the working of various government programmes, the Planning Commission's independent evaluation office set up a few years back has started analyzing government-run schemes but finds difficulty in doing so on indicators as data on outcome is not timely, Planning Commission deputy chairman Montek Singh Ahluwalia said.

Responding to questions posed on first ever Google hangout on the 12th five-year plan (2012-13 to 2016-17), Ahluwalia said that accountability in a democracy is with the Parliament and if people want to raise issues they should do that with the Parliamentarians.

He also said that if the  steps listed in 12th five-year plan document are implemented that the shortage in power generation and power demand in the country could be resolved to a large extent by the time the 12th plan ends in 2016-17.

Refuting criticisms that the plan process is loaded with top-down approach and does not  involve large sections of the society  the deputy chairman said that his idea of participatory decision making is not only consulting people sitting in the Center, but those who are directly impacted by the decisions.

On meager allocation to states, other members of the Commission who were also present in the hangout said that the changes being brought about after the implementation of B K Chaturvedi Committee report on re-assessment of Centrally Sponsored Schemes (CSS) will ensure that devolution to states would be much larger both financially and also in physical terms in the 12th five-year plan as compared to any other plan.