NEW DELHI-Planning Commission s Make-Believe World

NEW DELHI Planning Commission's Make-Believe World B M THE planners in Yojana Bhavan hit on a bright idea when they suggested to the caretaker Prime Minister, Charan Singh, that the final draft of the Rs 71,000 crore Sixth Five-Year Plan drawn up by them last June and approved at a meeting of the full Planning Commission chaired by the former Prime Minister, Morarji Desai, should be published without waiting for its approval by the Union Cabinet the National Development Council Irfter the coming mid-term poll. The argument advanced was that this would help the state governments and the Union ministries to prepare their annual plans for next year. This exercise normally starts at about this time of the year and it was suggested that the process should not be interrupted because of the abnormal political situation pending the mid-term poll to the Lok Sabha. The planners also felt that, in any case, there was little scope for any major modifications in the draft and if they were to be attempted by the new government after the poll, the five-year span of the Sixth Plan would nearly expire without a plan at all. The idea of publishing the draft Plan and treating it as the basis for planning exercises of the state governments and Union ministries for the coming par was thus the planners' unique Technocratic and administrative solution to planning problems in a difficult and uncertain political situation.