Analysis of the working of Planning commission

Advantages of Planning Commission

  • Planning Commission laid emphasis on infrastructure developments and capacity building. As a result, huge investments were made in education, energy, industry, railways and irrigation.
  • India became self-sufficient in agriculture and made great progress in capital sector goods and consumer sector goods.
  • Planning Commission introduced many remarkable concepts like nationalisation, green revolution etc and transformed itself to align with new concepts like liberalisation, privatisation and inclusion.
  • Planning commission made great emphasis on social justice, governance, employment generation, poverty alleviation, health and skill development.
  • The transformation of India from a poor to an emerging economic power is credited to the orderly and phased manner in which planning was implemented.

Challenges of Planning Commission

  • No structural mechanism for regular engagement with states.
  • Ineffective forum for the resolution of centre-state and inter-ministerial issues.
  • Inadequate capacity expertise and domain knowledge; weak networks with think tanks and lack of access to expertise outside government.
  • Failed to implement land reforms.
  • It was a toothless body, was not able to make union/states/UTs answerable for not achieving the targets.
  • Designed plans with ‘one size fit for all’ approach. Hence, many plans failed to show tangible results.
  • Weak implementation, monitoring and evaluation.