Dr Bharat Jhunjhunwala
Prime Minister Narendra Modi has declared that the Planning Commission will be disbanded in its present form and a Think Tank will be created instead. The Commission was set up in the fifties by Nehru to give direction to the developmental activities. The Commission was to ensure that policies implemented by different Ministries should not work at cross purposes. The Power Ministry, for example, wants to cut the forests for generation of electricity while the Environment and Forests Ministry does not want to cut them for conservation of biodiversity. The Planning Commission was expected to synchronize such policies. The Commission has generally been successful in doing this as seen by the strides the country has made since Independence. Indeed, the Commission may have exceeded the scope of its authority by exercising undue influence on the allocation of funds to the state Governments. But such exceeding the scope should not be read as failure; rather it may be a product of overreach fostered by personal equations that the likes of Montek Singh Ahluwalia enjoyed with Manmohan Singh. The Commission has become progressively cut off from the people and deeply connected with invisible bureaucratic and corporate interests. The world, however, is moving in the opposite direction.
At the annual Central Economic Conference in 2012, Xi Jinping, General Secretary of the CPC Central Committee as he was then, demanded establishing decision-making consulting mechanisms and developing think tanks that are capable of assisting decision-makers and researching topics before practical needs emerge. Just one month after he was elected president, Xi expressed his approval to a proposal of building think tanks with Chinese characteristics. The Third Plenary Session of the 18th CPC Central Committee in November 2013 decided to establish a complete consulting system for decision-makers.
The National Planning Commission of South Africa released its vision statement and plan on its website, and then invited people to participate in the Plan’s formulation online. The Commission set aside 72 hours to interact with members of the public. Minister Trevor Manuel sat at the laptop answering questions and taking on discussions with people.
Looking backwards, this demand for increased consultation is a new stage in development of governance. In 1750 only England and the Netherlands had placed limits on the powers of the king. All the other rulers of Europe, the Muslim Empires, and China had absolute power. The situation changed dramatically with the oncoming of the Industrial Revolution. The economic changes lifted the standard of living and education of the masses. People began to question the assumptions of absolute Governments. The new idea was that people can figure things out, and they can come up with better decisions. In the 1600s John Locke wrote that a ruler’s authority is based on the will of the people. He also spoke of a social contract that gave subjects the right to overthrow the ruler if he ruled badly. The worldwide spread of democracy was this directly an outcome of the technological changes that came with the Industrial Revolution.
Today we are moving onto the next plane due to the development of Information and Communication technologies. People can now download and read Government policy documents and they have the mind and the energy to respond to it. They want to be heard and their concerns and ideas to be taken on board. It is here that our Planning Commission has miserably failed.
I had written a book on Economics of Hydropower. I had made a cost-benefit analysis of the Kotlibhel hydroelectric project. I met Shri Kirit Parikh, Member of the Planning Commission. He promised to commission a study on the Run-of-River Dams being made by the hundreds in the Himalayas. Then he went silent and would not even give an appointment. The commercial interests of hydropower companies were more powerful. In another incident, I along with Swami Gyan Swarup Sanand had filed a case in the National Green Tribunal challenging the findings of a studies done by IIT Roorkee and Wildlife Institute of India regarding impact of hydropower projects on environment. The Tribunal directed the Government to give a hearing to us. Member, Planning Commission, Shri B K Chaturvedi called us for discussion. But that was a sham. Not one point made during the discussion was accepted or even rebutted in the report. The Commission had totally delinked with the people.
Scrapping the Commission and establishing a Think Tank will not serve any purpose. The Think Tank is likely to remain as isolated from the people. The Energy Research Institute (TERI) is one of the Indian Think Tanks that is mentioned in the top 100 non-US Think Tanks worldwide. Yet it is happy to misstate facts when project money is involved. TERI assessed that people were willing to pay about Rs 7 per unit of electricity. Later the National Hydro Power Corporation gave a contract to TERI to evaluate the costs and benefits of two hydropower projects. TERI now concluded that the benefits of electricity were Rs 100 per unit. The benefits were increased from Rs 7 to Rs 100 when prompted by a hydropower company. This is the sad state of our globally-ranked “Independent” Think Tanks. One can only imagine the state of a Think Tank established by the Government.
The fundamental problem is that the Government is being run by a combine of foreign-, business- and bureaucratic interests. They have no interest or concern for the people. The need it to change this mindset of the bureaucrats in particular. A robust system of public participation in all facets of the Government has to be put in place. I have two suggestions. One, a department of social audit must be established. This department would appoint a Committee consisting of elected representatives, independent professionals, NGOs, and public representatives to make a social audit of all Government departments. The promotions of the concerned official and fund allocations for ensuing years would be made contingent on this audit report. Indeed, many of these Committees will be co-opted and sign on the dotted line. But there will be others that will resist and give a correct picture. Second suggestion is that the Government should enact a “Right to Reply” Act along the lines of Right to Information Act. It should be made obligatory for Government officials to give a reasoned response to suggestions given by the public. It should be obligatory for the Executive Engineer, for example, to give reasons for rejecting a suggestion like increasing the capacity of a transformer. Mere changing names will not do. The country wants deeper and tangible changes in the way the Government runs.
(The author was formerly Professor of Economics at IIM Bengaluru)
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