MID
YEAR SEMINAR OF BENGAL ECONOMIC ASSOCIATION ON 29-09-2015
AT
INTERNATIONAL MANAGEMENT INSTITUTE ,KOLKATA
On
Planning Commission and NITI Aayog: Experiences and Expectations
Bengal
Economic Association held its Mid Year Seminar on “Planning
Commission and NITI Aayog: Experiences and Expectations” at INTERNATIONAL
MANAGEMENT INSTITUTE ,KOLKATA on 27-09-2015.
The seminar was inaugurated by Prof.Arindam
Banik-The Director of IMI.In his inaugural lecture,he said that the NITI Aayog
just came in and its goal ,motive,strategy are still unknown.Why the financial
allocations of NITI Aayog was not incorporated is confusionary.Prof.Anup Kumar
Sinha of IIM(Kolkata) delivered his key note speech where he mentioned the
history of planning,the routes of planning,crisis of planning,change of
strategy by NITI Aayog.In the history,he mentioned about growth of
employment,poverty,and the models of planning from the first high lighting
allocations,post colonial reconstruction,Bretton Woods System and exchange rate
management system,growth and distribution,low productivity,problem of
implementation,corruptions,faltry planning,problem of land reform and green
revolution,naxalist and Maoist problem,lobbies from states,short run
expectations,economic reform,Washington consensus,WTO,free trade policy,huge
fiscal deficit,unregulated market,capital mobility,uncontrolled money
supply,investment market in development process where FDI is invited ,foreign
currencies outflowed.Now,NITI Aayog leading by BJP government,which is a think
tank,giving no power of sanction of funds ,but declared cooperative
federalism,and they did not define the role of Aayog and its power clearly, but
many visions to be done,how they control service-led growth
sustainability,infrastructure market are not focused.Their composition of Aayog
is somehow complex.
In the technical session-1,two papers were presented
for the session on planning commission.Retired prof.Anath Bandhu Mukherjee,told
about “Transforming India –The Neo-liberal Way” through the process and history
of planning commission.He opined very negative expectations from the new BJP
led NITI Aayog.Granthana Sengupta-Assistant Professor of Sundarban Hazi Desarat
College,said on “Planning Commission and NITI Aayog:Experience and Expectation”
where she clarified the success and failures of planning commission and to what
extent the NITI Aayog can do for the welfare of the people.In the second
technical session,there were three papers.Souvik Mukherjee of Jadavpur University
told about “From the Planning Commission to the NITI Aayog:An Intellectual
Journey” where he emphasized on the post colonial reconstruction to the birth
of birth of the NITI Aayog in which there are many unanswered questions to be
explored”.Kishor Naskar and Sourav Kumar Das,in their paper,”NITI Aayog:Central
Planning Agency of India”,showed by a present structure and modeled structure comparing the different
Central Planning Agency by which they concluded about NITI Aayog.
Dr.Debesh Bhowmik,in his paper “NITI Aayog:Some
Challenges Ahead” spoke about,the principles,objectives,composition,of NITI
Aayog,the difference between planning commission and NITI Aayog, political
economy of NITI Aayog and he mentioned about the outcome of 65 years of planning
of the planning commission.Such as,
21.9% of India’s population live still below the
poverty line which is underestimated in terms of per capita per day consumption
expenditure.10% of people are still hungry and cannot get pure drinking
water.40% of people have not any access of health facility and sanitation
facility. More than 30% of people in India are illiterate. Less than 4% of GDP
are expensed in health and education- a bare minimum.22% of the population live
in the slums. The GDP share of top 10% of the population is increasing and on
the other hand the GDP share of bottom 10% population is decreasing and thus
inequality is rising. During 65 years of planning the GDP growth rate is
increasing at the rate of 4.3% during 1970-2014 only, agricultural growth rate
is less than 3% during the plans, the industry growth rate is below 6% only and
service sector growth rate 7% only. On the contrary, agricultural share, industrial
share and service sector share have been increasing at the rate of 1.69%,0.93%
and 0.747% per year respectively during 1950-51-2013-14.Inflation rate is
clouded over the economy where unemployment rate is decreasing at the rate of
2.09% per year only during 1983-2013.India’s HDI rank is 135 and GDI rank is 135
which are too backward but corruption index is too high whose rank is 85 out of
175. In this situation India’s globalization index (92.52) is high whereas she
is enjoying structurally a trade deficit country since long. Her debt GDP ratio
(65.5) is also alarming. What have contributed the Planning Commission to us
during last 65 years? Sustainable development, green growth, food security, social
security-all are in dreams to Indians but India is a super power now in context
of military and defense expenditure. She is playing strategic power game in the
international relation whereas her citizens are half-fed having without
shelter.
There are some important strategic problems that
should be carefully handled by the NITI Aayog .These are the following:
[1]No coordination among RBI,NITI Aayog/Planning
Commission,finance ministry,Finance Commission,National Institute of Public
Finance and Policy
[2] Generally ,Government dictates all institutions
[3]Except First/Fourth plan,no targets of the plans
were actually realized.
[4] Strategy to achieve the central macro variables
( growth,saving,capital output ratio, employment growth, inflation and sectoral
growth) were found weak.
[5] Less priority to the public sector economy.
[6]Due to political interest there are many
unproductive and non capital formation programmes and projects.
[7] Emphasis on environment and renewable energy in
recent times
[8] Fiscal federalism is weak and no fiscal
convergence among states(fiscal deficit is now 5.6% of GDP but target rate is
4.1% which does not follow FRBM target of 3%).
[9] Uneven industrial growth/expansion among states
[10] North Eastern States are deprived and neglected
in the planning structure
[11] Inputs/ingradients of rural development were
neglected
[12] Land reforms are undone in most of the states
[13] No long term policy measures for correcting
structural trade deficit and BOP deficits.
(
dominated by SAF and ESAF of IMF)
[14]Rupee convertibility was found premature death
[15]Revenue expansion policy should be revamped
[16]
unproductive government expenditure policy should be minimized
[17] No excuse on government corruptions
[18] Monitoring on Ministry of Finance,RBI,Planning
Commission, Finance Commission is nil
[19]Progress of human development is marginal
[20] saving investment gap and trade gap is
uncovered ( now saving is 30.1% of GDP but investment rate is 34.8% of GDP-a
huge gap)
[21] rural development and urban development gap is
widening
[22] more emphasis should given on natural resource
mobilization
[23] less importance in the gender development and
recently incorporated on gender budgeting
[24] poor infrastructure development but it is known
that 1% increase in infrastructure will lead to 1% increase in GDP .
[25] to handle carefully the
growth-employment,growth-inflation,and unemployment –inflation trade off.
Thus NITI Aayog has lot of works to do for the
welfare of people.
Lastly,Vote of thanks was given by Bani Mukherjee.
