Vinayak Chatterjee: Planning in ignorance

The government candidly admits it cannot provide data on gross capital formation in infrastructure.

Regular readers of this column will recall that this columnist filed a Right to Information (RTI) petition on March 5, 2009. The RTI petition, and the background to the same, was thereafter published in this column on March 16.

The RTI petition queried regular dissemination of the data called “Gross Capital Formation in Infrastructure as per cent of GDP”. This statistic is regularly mentioned in government plans and budgets but never has the actual performance data been disseminated to the public.

The RTI petition was filed with:

 

Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation, Government of India. 
 

The Planning Commission 
 

Department of Economic Affairs, Ministry of Finance, Government of India. 

The information sought in the RTI application was the following:

Details regarding since which plan-period the data in respect of gross capital formation in the infrastructure sector is being collected and maintained. 
 

Year-wise details of the targets set for gross capital formation for infrastructure in the public and private sector in the plan document for the 11th Plan period. 
 

The figure for gross capital formation in infrastructure in the first two years of the 11th Plan Period, i.e., the financial year 2007-08 and 2008-09. The gross figures as well as the figures separately for the public and the private sector may be provided. 
 

Please provide details of the existing process of collecting and compiling the statistical data at the national level for gross capital formation in the infrastructure sector both in the public as well as in the private domain. 
 

The details regarding the ministry, division and/or institution of the Government of India which has been mandated with the task of collecting, collating and disseminating the statistical data and information with respect to infrastructural investments both in the public and the private sector. 
 

Please clarify whether the statistics for gross capital formation in the infrastructure sector are being disseminated to the public. If yes, the form and manner and the sources through which it is being disseminated. 
 

In case no data regarding gross capital formation in the public and private sector infrastructure is currently being maintained, please provide the details regarding the current plans for initiating the process of collecting, collating and disseminating such statistical data; and the time interval at which this statistics shall be disseminated to the public.

Responses have since come in. Outlined below are the summary replies:
From Ministry of Finance, Department of Economic Affairs (Economic Division) [April 8, 2009]

“We are unable to share information as Economic Division, Department of Economic Affairs, Ministry of Finance is neither mandated to have such information nor has information on the subject matter”.

From Planning Commission [March 13, 2009]
“In respect of the information sought at serial numbers I and III through VII, it may be noted that under the Government of India (Allocation of Business) Rules 1961 (as amended up to December 23, 2008), the Ministry of Planning has the responsibility to Parliament in regard to the subjects of national planning, and the Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation is responsible for, inter alia, publication of estimates on capital formation as well as the monitoring of the performance of Infrastructure Sectors”.

From Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation [March 17, 2009]
“So far as Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation is concerned, it is informed that the Central Statistical Organisation (CSO) in the Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation compiles and publishes data on gross capital formation (i) from the financing side as sum of saving and net capital inflow from abroad, (ii) by institutions (public sector, private corporate sector and the household sector) and assets; and (iii) by industries (agriculture, forestry and logging, fishing, mining and quarrying, manufacturing, electricity, gas and water supply, construction, trade, hotels and restaurants, railways, transport by other means, storage, communication, banking and insurance, real estate, ownership of dwellings and business services, public administration and defence, and other community, social and personal services) separately for public sector and for the overall economy. These data are published in the CSO’s annual publication, National Accounts Statistics (NAS). The CSO does not publish data on gross capital formation in infrastructure as such.

The above data on gross capital formation (i) from 1950-51 to 1999-2000 for the overall economy (for the public sector by industry from 1960-61) is available in the Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation (MOS&PI)’s website http://mospi.gov.in under reports and publications, in the publication National Accounts Statistics Back Series 2007 (1950-51 to 1999-2000); and (ii) from 1999-2000 onwards for the overall economy in the press note on Quick Estimates of National Income, Consumption Expenditure, Saving and Capital Formation 2007-08 released by the CSO on January 30, 2009, also available in the same website under press releases of national accounts. The data on gross capital formation by industry in public sector from 1999-2000 will be placed shortly on the same website at the link: http://mospi.gov.in/mospi_nad_main.htm under important statements of NAS 2009.

The details of present procedure of collecting and compiling statistical data at the national level for gross capital formation for the overall economy as well as for the public sector, are available in the Publication ‘National Accounts Statistics, Sources and Methods, 2007’, which is also available on the above mentioned Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation website. The CSO has no plans at present to publish the data on gross capital formation by any classification other than what is currently being followed”.

So much then for monitoring the actual progress of the 11th Plan projection that says: “The total investment in these areas (infrastructure) was around 5 per cent of GDP in 2006-07 and the Plan aims at increasing this to about 9 per cent of GDP by the terminal annum 2011-12”. So much also for all the talk about India absorbing $500 billion of infrastructure investments when we, as a nation, do not even have a statistical superstructure to monitor data on actual capital formation in infrastructure on a real time basis.

So where do we go from here? This columnist is clueless and would welcome fresh suggestions on how to get the government moving in this direction.

Regular readers and Indian infrastructure zealots, many of whom have been asking about the response to the RTI, are earnestly requested to send in suggestions for continuing to push this agenda at vinayak@feedbackventures.com. For the present, ignorance is bliss!

Vinayak Chatterjee is chairman of Feedback Ventures Views expressed are personal