Plan Commission has failed to deliver, says House panel

A Parliamentary panel has pulled up the country’s highest think-tank, the Planning Commission, for its failure to come to grips with the needs of changing India post-reforms and relating the plan process to the basic needs of the common man.

In a report tabled in the Lok Sabha on Wednesday, the panel, headed by senior Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader Yashwant Sinha, flayed the Commission for its delay in preparing the approach paper to the 12th Five-Year Plan, one of the basic functions of the Commission.

It asked the government to set up an expert group to evaluate the performance of the Planning Commission and redefine its role. The 12th Five-Year Plan will start from 2012-2013 and the current financial year is the last year of the 11th Five-Year Plan.

The Committee said despite over six decades of planning, the extent of progress made on all fronts has been far from satisfactory.

“Despite a good number of policy measures and interventions made at different level, the development policies have not benefitted majority of the people in the country, which is evident from the wide imbalance in development across states and within states,” the Parliamentary panel said.

The report said the Planning Commission does not seem to have a futuristic vision in social planning in the post-reforms period.

On the policy front too, the Committee observed that there seems to be a disconnect between Planning and budgeting and lack of proper monitoring which has lead to failure in delivering the desired results.

The report said when these issues call for an immediate and serious introspection, just“ tailor made solutions” like implementation of UID scheme gave satisfaction to the Ministry of Planning.