Mamata Singh: Centre by Centre Left

BACKSTAGE

A story one hears about Pronab Sen is that he and his brother Abhijit Sen were sent to different schools because their father, noted economist and civil servant, Samar Ranjan Sen, wanted them to imbibe different schools of thought.

So, one (Abhijit Sen) became an out and out Left economist, and the other describes himself as centre by centre Left, which, he says basically means that when thinking of an issue, what occupies the front of his mind is people at large and consumers.

That is precisely what pharma companies claim he did when formulating recommendations as head of the task force to explore various options other than price control for achieving the objective of making available life saving drugs at reasonable prices.

Of course, they also claim that he did so, while ignoring their own interests. On his part, Sen admits that what is beneficial to consumers in the short run, could be extremely damaging to industry in the long run "" if handled badly.

But then he defines industry as not only the current incumbents, but also potential future entrants. "Good policy should encourage competition. The point is to create space for future entrants. Industry is opposing the proposals, not because it disturbs the current market equilibrium, but because it disturb the position of incumbents vis-à-vis new entrants," he argues.

The pull of academics proved too strong for Sen, who started out as a management consultant in the United States, but shifted to teaching after three years of the high pressure job.

He shifted to India and then to research, but found that research wasn't appreciated in Indian universities. He then shifted to government, primarily out of curiosity.

"In the eighties there was a lot of talk about reforms and liberalisation, but there was no impact on the government. So, I was curious to see what actually affected the way governments thought," he says.

He is the man behind the Software Policy of 1991, during his stint with the Department of Electronics. He was also the main drafter of the National Telecom Policy of 1994.

At the Planning Commission, which he joined in 1994, he has been responsible for drafting the Ninth and Tenth five year plans and is currently drafting the approach to the Eleventh five year plan.

A major change introduced in the planning process under his steering was the focus on the role of the financial sector in the development process.

At heart, however, he is still a teacher, and probably the only senior government official with jute matting rather than a carpet or tiles on his office floor "" very reminiscent of college staff rooms.