Commentary/Mani Shankar Aiyar
It is absurd that a government which has days to go should tell the country where its economy
will be five years from now
The polity of India is not confined to Sansad Marg. It is to be
found in our villages and mohallas. That is where governance has
so far been most ineffective. Planning must begin from there.
That is now a constitutional obligation. But you would not know
it to go by the present approach paper.
No state, as far as I
know, has as yet set up the district planning committee, elected
by the members of the panchayats and the nagarpalikas in proportion
to their rural: urban population ratio 'to consolidate the
plans prepared by the panchayats and the municipalities in the
district and to prepare a draft development plan for the district
as a whole,' as is required under Article 243-ZD
of the Constitution.
Read this with Articles 243-G and 243-W,
which provide for the panchayats and nagarpalikas respectively
to undertake, 'the preparation of plans for economic development
and social justice,' and you will see why it will not be
too difficult to get from the Supreme Court a stay order on further
consideration of the approach paper till the Planning Commission
fulfills its constitutional obligations.
The point, however, is not legal wrangling but a paradigm shift.
What we need is a new planning process informed both by the new
ethos of liberalisation for the marketplace and the new constitutional
provisions for local self-government. It is only if and when this
is done that there will be a framework within which to complete
the process of economic reform.
Through most of the Eighth Plan
period, North Block determined the pace and direction of reform
while Yojana Bhavan tugged at Manmohan's coat-tails. Given that
there was, at any rate in the initial stages, something less than
a national consensus on how far and fast to go from the practices
of the past, there was, perhaps, something to be said for setting
up a kind of dialectic between a radical North Block and a conservative
Yojana Bhavan to get the right balance between continuity and
change.
Now, however, it would be an inestimable advantage to get the
two behemoths to labour together. For if they did -- and only
if they do -- will there be that stability in economic policy
which underlines investor confidence. The Budget would then cease
to be a Russian roulette of annual policy changes and become,
as it should be, an adjustment policy, a fine-tuning, as it were,
of a policy that is known and accepted.
This is where a Five-Year
perspective, in preference to Five-Year Plan, would push the market
segment of our economy to tigerish rates of growth. Just remember
a consistent GDP growth rate of seven per cent per annum can lead
to the eradication of unemployment within eight years. It is such
hopes that are at stake.
Stable economic policy will also provided a clear indication of
the revenues available to finance the assault on poverty and the
promotion of human development indices. Combined with the machinery
of decentralised democratic development in the panchayats and
nagarpalikas, Yojana Bhavan can then chart the path of poverty
eradication and the building of that human capital which experience
from Singapore to Costa Rica has shown has much more to do with
growth rates than money capital.
All this is far too tall an order for the Gowda government to
even attempt. It will fall apart at the seams if it does. It is,
therefore, good bye time for the Gowda government. It must go.
Sitaram Kesri has
captured the commanding heights of his party. He must forestall
the presentation by this government of both the annual Budget
and its approach to the Ninth Plan. It is absurd that a government
which has days to go should tell the country where its economy
will be five years from now.
Therefore, before the NDC meets, there
should be a change of guard. With Manmohan Singh back in finance
and someone suitable (why not me?) in the Planning Commission,
Sitaram Kesri can then start taking India back to that millennium
from which we have been distracted these last six months. Kshma
chahte hain, rukawat ke liye khed hain!
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