‘Crony capitalism’ out of 12th Plan

The Planning Commission has decided to remove references to “crony capitalism” from the 12th Plan document, following loud protests from cabinet ministers at the panel’s meeting last week. Chetan Chauhan reports.

Updated on: Oct 3, 2012, 01:39:25 IST

Hindustan Times | By Chetan Chauhan, New Delhi

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The Planning Commission has decided to remove references to “crony capitalism” from the 12th Plan document, following loud protests from cabinet ministers at the panel’s meeting last week.

The ministers were offended that the original plan document had conceded to crony capitalism being at play even during the UPA’s regime, particularly at a time when the government was battling charges pertaining to 2G spectrum and coal mines.

“The contentious elements, as desired by the Prime Minister, have been removed,” confirmed a top Planning Commission functionary. “We don’t expect any more controversies.”

The 12th Plan (2012-17) document, shortened by 200 pages to around 1,600 on the direction of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, is likely to be considered by the cabinet this week.

At the full Planning Commission meeting on September 15, commerce minister Anand Sharma had objected to a portion of the original 12th Plan document, which stated that “discretionary allocation of natural resources, such as coal and spectrum, has led to crony capitalism”.

It said that allocation for profit-making commercial activity involves some “implicit rent” if the price at which the transfer takes place is not market-determined.

Backing Sharma, the Prime Minister had asked panel deputy chairperson Montek Singh Ahluwalia to be cautious while using such words in official documents.

According to officials, major changes have also been made in the health chapter of the 12th Plan to ally fears of health minister Gulam Nabi Azad that the plan was trying to downgrade the relevance of his ministry in executing health sector schemes.

Azad was livid that the document had referring to his ministry’s role as “peer reviewer” in execution of the health plan by the state governments, and said that the panel wanted his ministry to “close down”.

Union minister Kapil Sibal, meanwhile, had his reservations with regard to a portion that allowed profit-making by educational institutions. Sibal wanted the panel’s suggestion to be removed as it was against the stated policy of the government.

The panel has now rephrased the portion, stating that the profits should be ploughed back into the education system.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Chetan Chauhan
Chetan Chauhan is the National Affairs Editor looking into all aspects of news and features from across India. A Chevening scholar with over three decades of experience in reporting and news management, Chetan has extensively covered all important aspects of the social sector, political economy, environment and climate change nationally and internationally. He did a journalism course at the Reuters Institute of Journalism in Oxford and Digital Media training at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore. He started as a reporter with The Statesman in 1996 and joined the Hindustan Times in 2000 in the metro bureau covering environment, crime and Delhi politics. He covered hot local news, from the Jessica Lal murder case to the rebellion of Delhi Congress MLAs against then Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit, to the replacement of toxic vehicle fuel with cleaner compressed natural gas (CNG) in the national capital. Some of his stories on air pollution became part of the Supreme Court’s landmark MC Mehta versus Government of India case in the National Capital Region (NCR), forcing the government to take corrective measures. As part of the national political bureau since 2004, he covered important central sectors such as environment, education, social justice, labour, rural development, water resources, renewable energy, agriculture, broadcasting and the Planning Commission for more than a decade producing several exclusive and investigative breaking stories. His specialisation is the environment, having covered at least a dozen United Nations global conferences on climate change, biodiversity and wildlife including climate summits in Paris, Copenhagen and Bali. He also covered India’s two five-year plans ---11th and 12th and reported on drafting and execution of right based laws such as Right to Education, Right to Information and rural job guarantee law, MG-NREGA, now being introduced in new format as VG-RAM-G Act. He has in-depth knowledge of social sector issues. He was one of the first to report on tigers vanishing from Sariska and Panna wildlife reserves in 2004 and 2008, respectively, leading to the setting up of the National Tiger Conservation Authority (NTCA) and the introduction of stringent penal provisions for poaching. He has written extensively on the rising human-animal conflict in India and the degradation of India’s biodiversity hotspots because of mining and other activities. Since 2004, Chetan has covered Parliament comprehensively and participated in training on the nuanced coverage of Parliament proceedings. He has travelled extensively across India to cover national and provincial elections since 1998, especially in the Hindi heartland states, considered India’s road to power. He writes a regular column for Hindustan Times, Ecostani, on important national politics, economy, Himalayan ecology and environmental issues. His other responsibilities include providing inputs for edits and edit page articles for the publication, apart from managing news flow from across India.Read More

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