Consultations on Planning Commission ongoing: PM Modi

Intervening during an ongoing debate in the Lok Sabha on Friday, Prime Minister Narendra Modi told members that his government has initiated a series of consultative processes with a cross-section of society, including experts, to determine the direction that the new Planning Commission will take.

In his intervention, Prime Minister Modi said, "With regard to the subject of the Planning Commission, we have had and continue to have wide-ranging consultations with people who have an interest in it, or, have knowledge and experience of it."

"Our government intends to collect and collate all of this information gathered to determine how the Planning Commission as an institution is to work over the next five years," he stated further.

"I will be meeting with and interacting with the chief ministers of all states on December 7 on this issue to have their views on how to make the Planning Commission relevant to our times, as also to determine the direction it will and should take," the Prime Minister said.

The Planning Commission was formed in 1950.

In his maiden Independence Day speech this year, Modi had said that the 64-year-old Soviet-style body will be replaced with a new institution keeping in view the changed economic situation internally and globally.

He said then that the importance of having revamped key federal structures could not and should not be underestimated if the nation was to move forward.

Modi said then that he was looking to establish an institution that would bring in creativity besides fresh ideas, thinking and hopes by utilising to the optimum level public-private partnership and youth power.