Plan panel suggests new governance model

India's developmental programmes may witness a paradigm shift with the Planning Commission wanting to introduce a concept of 'flexi-funds', to make innovation a central theme for implementing schemes and providing financial incentive to implement Forest Rights Act and Panchayat Extension to Scheduled Areas (PESA) Act.

Updated on: Jul 16, 2011, 18:03:56 IST

Hindustan Times | By Chetan Chauhan, New Delhi

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India's developmental programmes may witness a paradigm shift with the Planning Commission wanting to introduce a concept of 'flexi-funds', to make innovation a central theme for implementing schemes and providing financial incentive to implement Forest Rights Act and Panchayat Extension to Scheduled Areas (PESA) Act.

The new approach is a result of the country's topmost planning advisory body, the panel panel's consultation in different parts of the country regarding 12th five year plan.

And, these are some of the contours of the broad agreement that are likely to be shared with Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and senior Cabinet ministers at a full plan panel meeting later this month.

The commission will introduce a 'flexi-fund' concept in each of the flaghship programmes such as Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme, Sarva Siksha Abhiyan and Bharat Nirman.

"There will be some money provided in each flagship programmes which the state governments will be able to spend as per local needs; this will help in making the central schemes in tune with ground realities," said a senior plan panel member, who was not willing to be quoted.

Some chief ministers including Bihar's Nitish Kumar and Gujarat's Narendra Modi have been asking for making Central government schemes flexible to the help the state government in improving efficiency. They also said that it should be left to the states on how to implement the scheme with the Central government enumerating broad guidelines.

While the commission has not agreed with this suggestion it has not been averse to making the schemes flexible.

"One state may want to use NREGA fund for watershed management whereas another may like to use it for draining out excess water," the member explained.

In a new development governance model being propagated, the plan panel wants to provide certain funds to the district administration in the first two years to empower the Panchayati Raj bodies, improve its own capacity for implementing schemes and creating a sound monitoring mechanism with involvement of people.

"If the districts are able to take these innovative steps funds will be provided for the next three years," the member said, adding that innovation will be a key to spend central government funds.

The plan panel is also agreeable with the view of many chief ministers that it is impossible to implement such a large number (over 1,100) of the Central government schemes.

"There should be few flagship schemes and few other to supplement them. There are many schemes which have lost their relevance but are being continued because they provide employment to large number of bureaucracy," a senior plan panel official said.

Another condition likely to be imposed is linking implementation of FRA and PESA for fund disbursement in the Central India, which has a large tribal population.

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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