Plan panel substitute to get more teeth, legal backing

The new think-tank that will replace the Soviet-style Planning Commission will have statutory backing to ensure that its recommendations are implemented and will be accountable to Parliament, government sources told HT.

Updated on: Aug 31, 2014, 02:31:03 IST

Hindustan Times | By Chetan Chauhan, New Delhi

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The new think-tank that will replace the Soviet-style Planning Commission will have statutory backing to ensure that its recommendations are implemented and will be accountable to Parliament, government sources told HT.

The think-tank will not have as much power as the plan panel but it will be able to implement its recommendations across ministries, said those privy to the proposals being considered by the government.

“The Prime Minister’s biggest criticism of the planning commission was that its functions were not well defined and, therefore, it overstepped its brief on a regular basis,” said a senior government official. “That would be corrected with the formation of the new body having a clear mandate and functions.”

The new think-tank will act as a multi-sector advisory body to Prime Minister Narendra Modi and will have statutory powers to enable it to implement policies on behalf of the Prime Minister’s office.

It will also perform the function of a central body that will work with different ministries and state governments for policies initiated by the Centre and will monitor their progress.

“The PMO would be calling a meeting with experts from different state governments to discuss this aspect very soon,” said a senior plan panel official.

Officials said the new body will need to be backed by strong laws if it is to prove effective.

“Just defining powers of the think-tank in the guidelines may not be adequate,” an official said, adding that providing legal backing to the body could be the best way to empower it.

Officials said this will also ensure the new body is accountable to Parliament. It will then have to periodically submit its reports to Parliament and will be open for review by parliamentary standing committees.

However, the new body is unlikely to be given the job of disbursing funds to state governments or appraising Central schemes.

Many feel the decision to scrap the panel was hurried and the government did not clearly spell out the details of the alternative.

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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