Five-year Plans out, 15-year vision documents from next fiscal

The government has decided to replace the Nehruvian Five-year Plans being followed for over six decades with a 15-year vision document to be prepared by the NITI Aayog that will cover internal security and defence.

Earlier, Five-year Plans did not cover subjects like internal security and defence as the policy documents focussed on sectors such as infrastructure, commerce, education and health.

“The Prime Minister’s Office has entrusted NITI Aayog (with the job) to come up with a 15-year vision document for a period up to 2030 which will be co-terminus with the Sustainable Development Goals. This will be a 15-year perspective plan,” a source said.

The NITI Aayog will also prepare a seven-year strategy from 2017-18 to 2023-24 to convert a long-vision document into implementable policy and action as part of the national developmental agenda.

There will also be a mid-term review of the seven-year strategy in the year ending March 2020.

“A three-year action Plan for 2017-18 to 2019-20 as part of the National Development Agenda will be aligned with the 14th Finance Commission award period,” the source said.

The source further said the draft appraisal document of the 12th Plan (2012-17) is currently being finalised and the exercise for the vision document and seven-year strategy paper will be initiated shortly.

Several committees have questioned the merit in having Plan and Non-Plan classification of government expenditure and the general view is that it has skewed allocations in the Budget and the classification should be done on the basis of revenue and capital expenditure.

Finance Minister Arun Jaitley had announced in his Budget speech this year that Plan and non-Plan classification will be done away with from 2017-18.

In order to draw up strategies, the sector-specific working groups and steering committees will be formed by involving Union ministries/departments and associating state governments, experts, academia, professionals and the like.

A former Planning Commission member Abhijit Sen said, “The Five-year Plans were backed by 15-20 years of vision. Now, they will talk in generality on all issues without taking a medium term plan.”

Asked whether this kind of long-term planning will make any difference, Sen replied in the negative.

He said the institution is expected to form a view on the basis of its internal thinking and the government’s vision and develop strategy with objectives and incentives and see whether different ministries work in tandem.

He felt that after the formation of NITI Aayog, ministries are afraid of the Finance Ministry (because it allocates funds) and are taking the NITI Aayog for granted.

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