The new name of planning

The “Yojana Aayog” or “Planning Commission” has been replaced by the “National Institution for Transforming India” or “NITI” for short. First and foremost, it means a sharp break from Soviet inspired National Development Plans to “Niti”, that is “Policy” and “Institutional change for ‘transforming India’.” Paragraph three of the Cabinet resolution states: we “require institutional reforms in governance and dynamic policy shifts that can seed and nurture large-scale change.” “Development” is one of those words that everyone thinks they understand but which means many different things to different people. The cabinet resolution constituting Niti Aayog approvingly quotes Mahatma Gandhi: “Constant development is the law of life, and a man who always tries to maintain his dogmas in order to appear consistent drives himself into a false position.” The Planning Commission took its first tentative steps towards “policy” 28 years ago, by creating a post of Advisor Development Policy. They require institutional reforms in governance and dynamic policy shifts that can seed and nurture large-scale change.” Subsequently, there is an indication of how the institutional reforms in governance can be brought about: “Government and governance have to be conducted in an environment of total transparency — using technology to reduce opacity and thereby, the potential for misadventures in governing.” Poverty elimination A paper in the Economic and Political Weekly in 2002 had raised the issue of corruption and governance and to bring policy-institutional reform into the development debate, but to no avail. The lessons learnt through monitoring and feedback will be used for making innovative improvements, including necessary midcourse corrections; to provide advice and encourage partnerships between key stakeholders and national and international like-minded think tanks, as well as educational and policy research institutions; to create a knowledge, innovation and entrepreneurial support system through a collaborative community of national and international experts, practitioners and other partners; to maintain a state-of-the-art resource centre, be a repository of research on good governance and best practices in sustainable and equitable development as well as help in their dissemination to stakeholders, and to focus on technology upgradation and capacity-building for implementation of programmes and initiatives In the first of these, the emphasis on “lessons learnt” is very important.