NEW DELHI-Planning Is Dead, Long Live the Plan

The charade or the formulation or the Eighth plan and the National Development Council meeting to solemnly endorse its impressive investment and growth targets are a piece of grand deception against the reality of the IMF-World Bank supervised structural adjustment programme which the government is committed to implementing faithfully THE latest session of the National Development Council failed to impart the much-needed clarity to the issue of the role of planning under the economic liberalisation and globalisation policies being pursued by the government with zeal. The prime minister talked rather casually about reorienting planning and the role of the Planning Commission. He talked about enlarging the area of indicative planning and building a long- term strategic view of the future. But this was an exercise in creating illusions among the people when the economic reality for them is tending to be starkly painful.