Context:
INDIA HAS CHANGED
The Planning Commission was constituted on 15.3.1950 through a Government of India
Resolution, and has served India well.
India, however, has changed dramatically over the past 65 years. While this has been at multiple
levels and across varied scales, the biggest transformatory forces have been the following:
Demography:
Our population has increased over three-fold to reach 121 crores. This includes
an addition of over 30 crore people to Urban India. As well as an increase of 55 crore youth
(below the age of 35), which is more than one and a half times the total population of the
country then. Furthermore, with increasing levels of development, literacy and
communication, the aspirations of our people have soared, moving from scarcity and survival
to safety and surplus. We are therefore looking at a completely different India today, and our
governance systems need to be transformed to keep up with the same.
Economy:
Our economy has undergone a paradigm shift. It has expanded by over a hundred
times, going from a GDP of Rs 10,000 crore to Rs 100 lakh crore at current prices, to emerge
as one of the world’s largest. Agriculture’s share in this has seen a dramatic drop, from more
than 50% to less than 15% of GDP. And our central government’s Twelfth Five Year Plan size
of Rs 43 lakh crore, dwarfs the First Five Year Plan size of Rs 2,400 crore. Priorities, strategies
and structures dating back to the time of the birth of the Planning Commission, must thus be
revisited. The very nature of our planning processes needs to be overhauled to align with this
shift in sheer scale.
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