Planning commission of India
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The Planning Commission is an institution in the Government of India, which formulates India's Five-Year Plans, among other functions.
Contents |
[edit] History
Rudimentary economic planning, deriving the sovereign authority of the state, first began in India in 1930s under the British Raj, and the colonial government of India formally established a planning board that functioned from 1944 to 1946. Private industrialists and economist formulated at least three development plans in 1944.
After India gained independence, a formal model of planning was adopted, and the planning commission, reporting directly to the Prime Minister of India was established. Accordingly, the Planning Commission was set up on 15 March 1950, with Prime Minister Jawahar Lal Nehru as the chairman.
[edit] Organisation
The composition of the Commission has undergone a lot of change since its inception. With the Prime Minister as the ex-officio Chairman, the committee has a nominated Deputy Chairman, who is given the rank of a full Cabinet Minister. Mr. Montek Singh Ahluwalia is presently the Deputy Chairman of the Commission.
Cabinet Ministers with certain important portfolios act as part-time members of the Commission, while the full-time members as experts of various fields like Economics, Industry, Science and General Administration.
The Commission works through its various divisions, of which there are three kind:
- General Planning Divisions
- Special Planning Divisions
- Programme Administration Divisions
The majority of experts in the Commission are economists, making the Commission the biggest employer of the Indian Economic Services.
[edit] Functions
- Assessment of resources of the country
- Formulation of Five-Year Plans for effective use of these resources
- Determination of priorities, and allocation of resources for the Plans
- Determination of requisite machinery for successful implementation of the Plans
- Periodical appraisal of the progress of the Plan
