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Why Planning Died in India
Why Planning Died in India
Why Planning Died in India
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them to invest.
Third, of the 21% which is available for public investment there is no easy way of knowing how much needs to go for funding
completion of ongoing projects and what then is the residual fiscal space for new projects. It is telling that even the Union
Government budget documents are not transparent about this important distinction in resource allocation.
The suspicion is that if Fiscal Deficit targets are to be achieved there is very limited fiscal space for new projects. A careful
inventory of approved but unfinanced projects could reveal a project stock as high as investment spending over the next five
years. This is not new and explains why the practice has been to spend on new projects by starving existing ones, so as to please
the largest number of political constituencies.
Remember that incomplete road outside your window which rakes up columns of dust every time a motorcycle zips by? Well
the reason why the engineers, you curse daily, are taking so long to complete it, is that money for a road or any other project is
not allocated and frozen at the time the project is approved. Allocations lapse at the end of the year and fresh allocations made
against which cash is released piece meal, depending on the relative power of conflicting political constituencies.
Fourth, planning died because planners did not reciprocate the faith put in them by citizens. They gold plated projects
(Common Wealth Games); they failed to anticipate technological change and innovation (Public Transportation) and thereby
created huge stockpiles of inefficient and unsustainable assets, financed by public debt.
PM Modi probably knows this and consequently is no hurry to devise a new planning set up. Of course every government wants
to leave its footprint encrusted in projects. The Modi government is no different, if one is to judge from the bouquet of
projects hurriedly announced and allocated notional amounts in the 2014 post-election budget.
The only hope this time around, is that there may be more emphasis on creating a facilitating environment and encouraging the
private sector to invest rather than using public funds to determine the future.
The test case will be defence production. If the government can get the domestic and foreign private sector to invest in make
in India, against buy back assurances, we shall be starting on an even keel. Nothing much there for the poor to cheer, except
some trickle down in construction and services, but at least the middle class can look forward to more jobs and better wages.
DISCLAIMER : Views expressed above are the author's own.
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Sanjeev Ahluwalia
Sanjeev S. Ahluwalia is an independent consultant in economic regulation; governance; institutional development; energy and infrastructure.
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