Belied Hopes In The Planning Sphere

Edited by Kuldeep Mathur, director of the National Institute of Educational Planning and Administration, this book contains 11 essays on policy perspectives. The essays probe, with a great deal of incisiveness, the policy failures in the realm of economics.

The primary focus of this book is on development administration. Even though public administration as an academic stream has been part of the curricula of Indian universities since the early 60s, development administration which was part of public administration is now emerging as an important field of study. But on the applied level, especially in the Indian context, it still has still a long way to go. It is here that the book makes a good contribution. The essays cover diverse areas ranging from the rise and decline of development planning to issues concerning decentralisation and the role of the NGO sector.

 

It is difficult to dispute the recurring conclusion of this book regarding the failure of the much-hyped planned process of development and that of the successive five-year plans in achieving targets. Its emphasis on the urgent need for drastic changes in the planning process and the administrative system is well founded.

Since the beginning of the planning process, planners had been pleading for a system different from that inherited from the colonial days. Several committees were appointed by successive governments; all ended up submitting voluminous reports, most still remain on paper. The administrators and planners, confident of building a socialist pattern of society, never hesitated to blame failures on administrative problems.

Then began the era of economic reforms which saw a deviation from the so-called socialist pattern. Reorientation became the motto. The task of the Eighth Plan was to undertake re-examination and re-orientation of the governments role as well as the planning process. Scarcity of resources, a lethargic bureaucracy and the unwillingness to adapt to the pace of social change are key problems facing the Indian economy. Even the much-hyped land reforms were not implemented effectively. Targets of providing drinking water and health facilities are miles away. As a result, the Eighth Plan began with a considerable backlog in the provision of the social consumption needs of people.

A sustained analysis of policy is essential for the success of any planning system. Unfortunately, the Indian system is marked by the absence of it. A capability to learn from past failures is lacking in the entire administrative setup. To achieve targets, the task of planning cannot be compartmentalised. The entire government machinery has to be involved and part of the political process. A new policy of public administration and in-depth analysis of our policies in the academic, as well as applied, level is necessary in the present scenario.

Economic and structural reforms brought forward a new challenge to public administration in India. With the new paradigms of development and magical words like bureaucratic accountability, decentralisation, peoples participation, privatisation and NGOs in the air, there is ample opportunity for liberal administrative reforms in India.

In his detailed introduction, Mathur analyses the relevance of reforms in the public administration system prevalent in India. The book gives extracts from the Seventh and Eighth Plans, both of which were turning points in the history of Indian planning. The extracts are of great help in making a comparative analysis of both these plans.

The failure of the state in implementing policies has been explored effectively by Ajit Mozoomdar and Tushar Shah. They argue that the system cannot cope with sharp economic fluctuations on the national and international levels. Mozoomdar feels that the crisis of planning is closely related to the loss of consensus on planning objectives and priorities. Shah pleads for the setting up of new development institutions, and suggests that the state can focus on creating and using strategic organisations as instruments of change.

In the later chapters, the process and organisation of policy making institutions including the Planning Commission, and the relationship between the PMO and the civil services have been analysed. The failure of poverty alleviation programmmes and the panchayati raj experiment have also been examined. The tables and the list of selected additional reading material is useful for researchers, towards whom the book is mainly targeted.