 "Plan panel to discuss highs and lows with PM")
Officials said the Commission members, hand-picked by the Prime Minister himself, are going to make short presentations on the achievements in their respective areas of expertise and how their intervention helped shape a better policy environment. The term of the Planning Commission is coterminous with that of the Prime Minister.
The meeting, which is perhaps the first such instance of a sitting Prime Minister chairing an internal meeting of the commission which he heads, will also discuss the reforms initiated by the commission such as restructuring of the centrally sponsored schemes (CSS), first-time introducing three different economic growth scenarios in the 12th Five-Year Plan document, expenditure management, etc.
Officials said members such as Mihir Shah, who handles the social sector initiatives, is expected to talk about water-related issues, MGNREGA and BRGF. Reforms initiated in BRGF such as considering a block as a unit for determining backwardness, rather than the whole district, will also be discussed.
Arun Maira, who handles issues related to industries and housing and urban affairs, is expected to dwell on labour and problems of clearance of projects as well as the progress made so far.
B K Chaturvedi, another prominent member of the Commission, is expected to throw light on the challenges related to infrastructure financing, problems in financing of railway projects, etc.
Syeda Hameed is likely to detail how the pilots on universal health care are working across the country. “There will be special focus on long-term energy security and also how the Commission has moved towards achieving those,” said a senior official.
The meeting, which is being held against the backdrop of criticism by the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) over 10 years of the United Progressive Alliance’s “misrule”, will try to somewhat combat that and also highlight how policies and programmes have been more inclusive in the Manmohan Singh rule.
The forward movement on the visa-on-arrival issue, where the commission acted as a catalyst between the ministry of external affairs, home ministry and others to pave the way for granting the facility to almost all countries, could also come up for mention, said officials.
The commission in its 12th Five-Year Plan document had envisaged three growth scenarios. The first was eight per cent average annual growth, provided the government takes strong policy action on the fiscal front and address the issues related to delivery.
Growth could slip to six per cent, if insufficient policy measures are taken and the government is not able to solve the conflict between subsidies and financial stability.
In the third scenario, it said growth might slip to just five per cent, if there is logjam in policies and reform measures don’t move at the pace they should be moving. If the first two years of the Plan are considered, average growth fell even below the third scenario. The first year of the Plan delivered a 4.5 per cent GDP growth, and the second year is projected to yield 4.9 per cent, averaging 4.7 per cent in the first two years of the Plan.
The commission in its note on issues to be considered for the mid-term appraisal of the five-year plan emphasised on the need for institutions taking steps to do correct things right from the beginning rather than catching culprits mid-way.
The present commission wants the appraisal, which will be done by the new commission around October, to consider governance and employment generation as the two key issues on which extra focus should be laid in the remaining Plan period.
The other issues which the current commission feels would be of paramount importance in the coming years are human development, urbanisation, physical infrastructure, earth sciences, agriculture and rural development.