Planning Commission & Neeti Aayog - Difference between the two
Planning Commission & Neeti Aayog - Difference between the two
Introduction:
Ever since its establishment in 1950, the Planning Commission failed to deliver useful results despite having a pack of personnels with technical skills which is usually not available to any other government body. Not a complete change in the planning commission body but a revival of the dormant is necessary. This is basically what PM Narendra Modi seeks to do with the replacement of Planning Commission with Neeti Aayog. All the CMs of the states are in favor of this decision, the milestone of which was laid down by the PM in his first Independence Day speech. The planning commission’s failure to deliver its designated duties towards the development of the nation had always raised questions and criticisms and this change was is undeniably essential.
Differences between the Planning Commission and Neeti Aayog:
1. Structure: The Planning Commission has the prime minister as the ex officio Chairman, and a Deputy Chairman, who is given the rank of a full Cabinet Minister. Some Cabinet Ministers with certain important portfolios act as ex officio members of the Commission. The newly planned Neeti Aayog is designated to be a knowledge and innovation hub with the Prime Minister at its head. There shall be a vice-chairman who will be the real executive head to firm up long and short term perspective plans. The Chief Ministers will be part of decision-making and implementation of plans.
2. Better allotment: Unlike the old Planning Commission, Neeti Aayog will have combination of four divisions - Inter-state council, plan evaluation office, the Unique Identification Authority of India and the Direct Benefit Transfer department. All the divisions would have experts from the Centre and state governments and also experts from the industry.
3. Power to states: The states will have better role to play in the development schemes planned by the Neeti Aayog. Giving powers to respective states to have a say in the proposed plans will allow the implementation of better plans designated especially to meet the requirements of different states. Planning Commission was more focused on the centre. Modi’s evaluation that development of states is necessary for the development of the nation is a wise decision to act upon. “Decentralizing of power and planning” as mentioned by Arun Jaitley is indeed necessary for India.
4. Cooperative federalism: Neeti Aayog will include cooperative federalism, abandoning the incremental approach. Modi said that the process of policy planning has to change from “top to bottom” to “bottom to top.” This approach is certainly lacking in the old Planning Commission and is perhaps the one that India needs the most. The older system does not follow the federal structures. It simply bounds the state to follow the terms dictated by the centre.
5. Better utilization of funds: Misuse of central funds has been the biggest drawbacks of the planning commission. The Planning Commission was criticized for spending Rs. 35 lakh to renovate two blocks of toilets, while presenting a very low and questionably impractical verge of poverty of a monthly consumption of Rs. 859.6 in urban and Rs. 672.8 in rural areas. Neeti Aayog is said to devise policy and new mechanisms to improve Centre-State coordination for effective utilization of central funds of worth Rs. 3,00,000 crore in 2014-15.
6. State-centre relations: Neeti Aayog is designated to solve state-centre issues and any such issues will be handled by the new body with direct interactions between centre and state. Unlike Planning Commission, Neeti Aayog is said to augment state-centre relations.
Conclusion:
The differences are huge and the “Team India” concept is indubitably necessary for developing Asia's third-largest economy. Scraping the old to revive the new is something that should have been done long back but the Congress Government decided to blindly abide by the Nehruvian policies or maybe was clumsy enough to enact upon this plan.
