On the day Prime Minister Narendra Modi invited ideas from people on the new institution to replace the Planning Commission, Opposition parties accused him of sidestepping Parliament and the National Development Council (NDC).
Terming Modi’s Independence Day announcement as arbitrary and knee-jerk, Congress spokesperson Anand Sharma said the Prime Minister should have consulted the States before making such a move.
“Making an arbitrary announcement to scrap Planning Commission without putting in place an alternative model first is totally wrong. It’s a kneejerk and half-baked decision. The Prime Minister should have taken on board the views of Chief Ministers before taking such a decision,” Sharma told reporters here on Tuesday.
He further said the Government should have convened a meeting of the NDC to discuss the issue.
The Modi Government is not trying either to restructure or downsize the pl an panel, but to scrap it entirely, he pointed out. “He has done exactly the opposite by unilaterally announcing a decision to replace the plan panel without seeking the views of the States,” Sharma said.
The Left parties said the role of the Planning Commission has already been curtailed in the last two decades under liberalisation. The CPI(M) said the step was taken a day after the Parliament session ended, without any discussion in Parliament or consultation with political parties or other concerned entities.
“What Modi has done is to give it a final burial. The Planning Commission had been tasked with certain allocation of resources under the plan, providing for a balanced development keeping in mind regional disparities and monitoring of important schemes and projects,” the CPI(M) Polit Bureau said in a statement.
The party suggested that the Planning Commission should be made an executive wing of the NDC so that it becomes a truly federal institution.
“But if the Planning Commission itself is dismantled, the allocation for States will be decided by the Finance Ministry, which will only lead to further centralisation and bring in political bias, as far as the States are concerned,” the statement added.
The CPI said the abolition of the Planning Commission is part of a policy to usher in a full-fledged market economy, a free-for-all to benefit the private sector, leading to anarchy in the system.
“It will result in (the nation) losing all the development priorities and poverty alleviation getting lost. The nation will suffer badly,” the National Executive of the CPI said.