National Level Planning
At national level, Planning Commission is the
nodal agency responsible for the countries planning. The Prime Minister is the
Chairman of this Commission. It not only prepares Plans for the country but
also coordinates the sectored development works of different ministries of the
central government, states and union territories. The functions of the planning
commission are supervised through the National Development Council.
The Planning Commission has been granted
constitutional status through 52nd Amendment of the Constitution. No
big plan can be executed without its prior approval by the Planning Commission.
The Commission formulates three types of plans.
- Perspective
plans for 15-25 years
- Five
year plans
- Annual
plans within the framework of five year plan.
The planning commission is headed by Prime
Minister of India, it has full time members who assist the Prime Minister in
planning and provide advice and guidance for formulation of five year plan. The
full time members consists of Deputy Chairman and includes experts from various
fields like economics, industry, science and general administration. It also
includes ministers from relevant portfolios like Finance, Agriculture, Home
Ministry, Health, Chemicals and Fertilizers, Information Technology, Law, HRD
and Minister of State for Planning.
Organization Structure & Functions
It has 11 main departments and 20 sub
ordinate departments and that makes 31 divisions for which the planning
commission concentrates on planning. It has two main divisions of function.
They are General Planning Divisions and Programme Administration Divisions. The
main function of the commission is planning. The other functions includes
economic survey, human resources and capital assessment in the country. It also
concerns with removing any factor impeding the growth of the country.
Planning
Commission
The Planning Commission is the technical body
for facilitating the planning process in our country. It was set up by the
Government in March, 1950. Its functions are
- To make
an assessment of the material, capital and human resources of the country,
including technical personnel and investigate the possibilities of augmenting
such of these resources as are found to be deficient in relation to the
nation’s requirements
- To
formulate a plan for the most effective and balanced utilization of the country’s
resources
- To
determine priorities, define the stages in which the plan should be carried out
and propose the allocation of resources for the due completion of each stage
- To
indicate the factors which tend to retard economic development and determine the
conditions which, in view of the current social and political situation, should
be created for the successful execution of the plan
- To
determine the nature of the machinery, which will be necessary for securing the
successful implementation of each stage of the plan in all its aspects
- To
appraise, from time to time, the progress achieved in the execution of each
stage of the plan and recommend the adjustments of policy and measures that
such appraisal may show to be necessary
- To make
such interim or ancillary recommendations as appear to be appropriate either
for facilitating the discharge of the duties assigned to it or, on a
consideration of prevailing economic conditions, current policies, measures and
development programmes or on an examination of such specific problems as may be
referred to it for advice by the central and state governments.
Planning Commission renamed as ‘NITI
(National Institution for Transforming India) Aayog’ in 1st January,2015,which
is a policy think of the Government of India, established with the aim to
achieve sustainable development goals and to enhance cooperative federalism by
fostering the involvement of state governments of India in the economic
policy-making process using a bottom-up approach. Its initiatives include "15
year road map", "7-year vision, strategy and action plan",
AMRUT, Digital India, Atal Innovation Mission, Medical Education Reform,
Agriculture reforms (Model Land Leasing Law, Reforms of the Agricultural
Produce Marketing Committee Act, Agricultural Marketing and Farmer Friendly
Reforms Index for ranking states), Indices Measuring State’s Performance in
Health, Education and Water Management, Task Forces on Agriculture and
Elimination of Poverty. Its functions are
- To
evolve a shared vision of national development priorities sectors and
strategies with the active involvement of States in the light of national
objectives.
- To
foster cooperative federalism through structured support initiatives and
mechanisms with the States on a continuous basis, recognizing that strong
states make a strong nation.
- To
develop mechanisms to formulate credible plans at the village level and
aggregate these progressively at higher levels of government.
- To
ensure, on areas that are specifically referred to it, that the interests of
national security are incorporated in economic strategy and policy.
- To pay
special attention to the sections of our society that may be at risk of not
benefiting adequately from economic progress.
- To
design strategic and long term policy and programme frameworks and initiatives,
and monitor their progress and their efficacy. The lessons learnt through
monitoring and feedback will be used for making innovative improvements,
including necessary mid-course 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
offer a platform for resolution of inter sectoral and inter departmental issues
in order to accelerate the implementation of the development agenda.
- 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 their dissemination to stake-holders.
- To
actively monitor and evaluate the implementation of programmes and initiatives,
including the identification of the needed resources so as to strengthen the
probability of success and scope of delivery.
- To
focus on technology up gradation and capacity building for implementation of
programmes and initiatives.
- To
undertake other activities as may be necessary in order to further the
execution of the national development agenda, and the objectives mentioned
above.
State Level Planning
At
state level the mechanism of the planning is almost same of the national level.
The state Planning Board acts like national planning commission and
coordinates the development plans of different ministries and the districts. It
also has the responsibility of the formulation, implementation and monitoring
of state plan. It is in constant touch with Planning Commission regarding the
formulation of plans and allocation of resources.
Under
the federal set up of the country states enjoy autonomy in certain state
subjects and play pivotal role in the implementation of planning programmes. It
is at state level that all sorts of economic and social data are available and
development plans could be formulated keeping regional interests and demands in
mind. Hence, there is a need for more rigorous exercise of planning at state
level. Those states which are conscious of their responsibility and are showing
interest in plan formulation and implementation are displaying better
performance in development programmes.
The
Executive head of a state is the Governor, who is appointed by the President of
India on the advice of the Prime Minister of India. As in the case of the
Centre, the Governor does not directly exercise the powers that are vested in
him. They are exercised through the Council of Ministers headed by the Chief
Minister. The advice of the Council of Ministers is binding on the Governor.
The Council of Ministers works through the secretariat that is headed by a
secretary. The main functions of the secretariat relate to assisting the
ministers in policy making and in discharging their legislative
responsibilities, co-ordination of policies and programmes, supervision and
control of expenditure, efficient running of administration, etc. The Council
of Ministers has a number of departments functioning under it which can be
broadly classified into three categories:
1. Development
departments (having the departments of agriculture and animal husbandry, rural
development, public works and industries)
2. Social
welfare departments (having the departments of education, health and social
welfare)
3. Coordinating
departments (having home, revenue, finance and planning departments)
The
Central Government has the power to legislate on the subjects given in the
Union List while the State governments have powers to legislate on the subjects
given in the State List. As far as subjects contained in the Concurrent List
are concerned, both central and state governments have powers to legislate on
them, but in case of conflict, the central law prevails. Organised activities
such as industries, minerals, railways and telecommunications come under the
Centre's responsibilities, while agriculture, collection of land revenue,
irrigation, power, public health, education, local self-government, and several
other important subjects come under the control of states.
District Level Planning
The
concept of the district-level planning is based on the principle of local level
planning. It also assumes that success of the planning needs greater mobilization
and utilization of local resources. Below the state, district occupies a
pivotal position in planning because of its location and administrative
advantages.
Not
only it has sufficient administrative and technical expertise and good source
of data and information to carry out plan programmes but has well-knit system
to involve people’s participation and make the gains of planning to reach to
the grass root level. The district board consists of elected representatives
who can play significant role in the process of planning. Hence, there is a
sizeable group of scholars who consider district as an ideal and viable unit of
micro level planning.
District
Planning is the process of preparing an integrated plan for the local
government sector in a district taking into account the resources (natural, human and financial) available and
covering the sectoral activities and schemes assigned to the district level and
below and those implemented through local governments in a state. District is
the most suitable administrative unit for decentralized planning below the
state level as it possesses the required heterogeneity and is small enough to
undertake people in planning and implementation and to improve productivity;
district planning is an important tool. Its contents will be as follows.
- Agriculture and allied sectors
- Availability and development of water
sources
- Industries – especially traditional,
small industries including food processing
- Infrastructure including power
- Drinking water and sanitation
- Literacy, school education
- Health and medical facilities
- Poverty reduction and basic needs
- Gender and children
- Social
justice – SC / ST, Persons with disability
It
is also argued that gram panchayat and development block are too small to act
as the smallest unit of planning. Also there is complete lack of administrative
framework and data collection system at these two levels. Hence, there would
be a number of difficulties in the formulation and execution of plans at
village and block levels.
Although
the importance of district level planning was realized during the times of
community development plans but the real breakthrough came with the Third Five
Year Plan (1961-1966) in which emphasis was laid on the district -level
planning to remove inter district and intra district disparities and make
optimum utilization of natural and human resources at district level.
Its
formulation and implementation are looked after by the District Planning
Officer (DPO) or the District Magistrate. Despite this elaborate system, the
task of preparing a reasonably sound district plan has not made much headway in
the states due to following constraints.
- Some lurking reluctance on the part of
Governments and their sartorial heads to devolve sufficient authority
(administrative and financial) to the planning bodies at the district level.
- Lack of effective co-ordination at the
district level between various agencies involved in the planning exercises.
- Institutionalized arrangements, for
seeking consultation with various participants in the planning process, were
either not well established or not sufficiently encouraged and developed.
- Lack of trained staff, both in terms of
number as well as quality. The inadequacy of training was a serious constraint.
- Lack of appropriate and reduced
methodologies for planning, in tandem with the capabilities available at the
local level. In this context, the non-availability of trained planning
personnel posed a serious problem.
- Planning without a clear and full
understanding of the realities of resource constraints.
- The database presented its own problems.
Although a surfeit of data is available at the local level from numerous
sources, appropriate methodologies for selecting the “critical minimum
information” for local planning from this mass of data and using the same for
some simple analysis for decision making, without going into highly
sophisticated techniques, had not emerged,
- Lack of people’s participation in
planning.
Block Level Planning
Block is an important unit of micro level planning.
These development blocks were created to supervise the implementation of
development plans under the Community Development Programme initiated during
the first five year plan. Each district was divided into a number of blocks and
each block comprised about 100 villages, with a population of about 60,000.
The programme visualized mobilization of
local resources, participation of the people in the decision making and
implementation of the development schemes. Hence, a new unit of planning was
created at block level under the leadership of a block development officer and
a team of various specialists and village level workers (officers).The Fifth
Five Year Plan) (1978-1983) opted for area planning with a preferment for block
level planning for achieving employment objectives and emphasis on rural
development.
The main objective of this planning was to
absorb local labour surpluses and greater involvement of people in the
formulation and implementation of development plans. Hence, by the end of 1983
adopt system of block level planning integrated into national system was
available
It is an action oriented planning pertaining
to the development of agriculture, irrigation (mainly minor irrigation), soil
conservation, animal husbandry, pisciculture, forestry, minor processing of
agricultural products, small and cottage industries, creation of local level
infrastructure, and development of social services like water supply, health,
education, shelter, sanitation, local transport, and welfare plans. The entire
process of block level planning passes through seven stages. These include
- Identification phase
- Resource inventory phase
- Plan formulation phase
- Employment plan phase
- Areal or layout plan phase
- Credit plan phase
- Integration and implementation phase
The main objectives of such planning include,
creation of skill to promote self-employment and self-reliance, improvement in
productivity and optimum utilization of local resources. Thus the main focus
of such planning is the identification of target group, introduction of
development plans to generate employment, popularization of minimum need
programmes and implementation of special programmes for weaker section of the
society.
Objectives
of Block Level Planning
The objectives of block planning should, to
the extent possible, be in harmony with national planning goals. The following
are the key objectives of block level planning.
- Increase
in employment and income, particularly of the poor, through optimal growth in
the area and through public employment programmes
- Distribution
of gains from development in a manner that they reach the weaker sections, i.e.
marginal farmers, agricultural labourers etc.
- Building
social and economic infrastructure in the area
- Increasing
the availability and accessibility of social services through minimum need and
other programmes and extending the reach of the public distribution system
- Building
institutions/organizations to protect the interests of the poor and the
vulnerable in the area
- Upgrading
technology, increasing productivity and contributing to skill formation
- Optimum
utilization of the development potentials of the region
- Solution
to the problems of unemployment
- Self-reliance
- Removal
of socio economic disparities
- Agriculture and allied activities
- Minor irrigation
- Soil conservation and water management
- Animal husbandry and poultry
- Fisheries
- Forestry
- Processing of agricultural produce
- Organizing input supply, credit, and
marketing
- Cottage and small industries
- Local infrastructure
- Social services
- Drinking water supply
- Health and nutrition
- Education
- Housing
- Sanitation
- Local transport
- Welfare programme
- Training of local youth and updating of
skills of local population
Panchayat Level Planning
The
Panchayat Raj System involves a three tier structure: village level, block
level and district level. The first tier at village level is commonly known as
Gram Panchayat (village assembly), the second tier at block level as Panchayat
Samiti and the third tier at district level as Zila Parishad.
According
to the provisions of the Panchayats Act 1996 the election to the village
Panchyat is held at an interval of 5 years. Through the Constitution Amendment
Act 1992 the Panchayat (also called Gram Sabha) has been authorized to look
after the preparation and implementation of plans for economic development and
social justice. The respective state has been given discretionary powers to
prescribe powers and functions to the Gram Sabha to act as an institution of
self-government.
It
has also been advised to constitute a District Planning Committee to
consolidate the plans prepared by the Panchyats and Municipalities and prepare
an integrated development plan for the district as a whole. It has also been
directed to constitute a State Finance Commission (SFC) to review every five
years, the financial position of Panchayats and to make recommendations about
the principle governing the distribution of revenues between the state and the
Panchyats, and determination of the grants in aid to the Panchayats from the
consolidated funds of the state.
The
implementation of the plan at the Panchayat level is the responsibility of the
Village Development Officer (VDO) and the secretary and is supervised by the
Gram Sabha. Under the existing provisions, funds for the Gram Sabha (Village
Panchayat) are directly being allocated from the centre to execute rural
development programmes like Integrated Rural Development Programme (IRDP) and
Jawahar Rozgar Yojna (JRY) etc.
The
Panchayat has also been entrusted with the responsibility for the promotion of
agriculture, rural industries, provision of medical relief, maternity, women
and child welfare, maintaining common grazing grounds, village roads, tanks,
wells, sanitation and execution of other socio-economic programmes. In some
places, they are also authorized to supervise primary education and collect
land revenue. Presently, Gram Panchayats are involved in the identification of
beneficiaries in antipoverty programmes. There are about 2.20 lakh Gram
Panchayats, 5,300 Panchayat Samitis and 400 Zila Parishads in the country.
It
has been found that elected representatives of Panchayat Raj Institutions are
largely unaware of the political and economic dimensions of development issues
and lack planning and managerial skills.
Multi-level
Planning opposed to centralized planning is an exercise where local
institutions are actively involved not only at the implementation level but MLP
is a more integrative effort that seeks to involve all hierarchies of
administrative, geographical, political and regional levels in planning
process. It seeks to involve active participation of the lower hierarchical
levels in information generation, data collection, policy suggestion, plan
implementation & monitoring of all developmental activities.
A
planning process can be either single level or multi-level. In the single level
planning, the formulation of plans and decision making are done at the national
level; the process is centralized and the lower territorial levels come into
the picture only at the implementation stage. On the other hand, in the
multi-level planning process, the national territory is divided into small
territorial units, their number depending upon the size of the country, the
administrative, the geographical and cultural settings. The Panchayat has also
been entrusted with the responsibility for the following.
·
Promotion of agriculture
·
Rural industries
·
Provision of medical facilities
·
Maternity, women and child welfare
·
Maintaining common grazing grounds,
village roads, tanks, wells
·
Sanitation
·
Execution of other socio-economic
development programmes
- Anti-poverty programmes
Thank you
ReplyDeleteI don’t waste my free time that’s why I read the informative things when I got this blog I really enjoyed reading this.
ReplyDeletedtc jobs
Nowadays Cosmetic Surgery and Cosmetic Procedures have become the new trend in the field of Aesthetics. Al Khaleej Clinics is your all in one place and the ultimate solution for all your best cosmetic surgery procedures in Karachi, Pakistan. Cosmetic Surgery
ReplyDelete