(1888PressRelease)
October 28, 2009 - For the first time in the history of Planning in India, a massive appraisal process is being experimented by WNTA involving millions of people through mass consultations, focused group discussions at the village level and state as well as regional consultations across the country.
Five Year Plans are integral parts of Indian macro policy making. The government budgets and many other target oriented activities of the government of India revolve around the FYPs in India. In India, FYPs focus on targetted interventions towards creating new capacities in the production and distributional functions among the socio-economic entities in the economy. Plan is a medium term strategy of the government of India to provide social and economic justice to the common people in India. Plan is not an end in itself. It is a process to achieve desired goals for equity and justice along with economic prosperity. Currently, the economy is going through Eleventh Five Year Plan to continue till 2012 aiming at inclusive growth for the nation.
The process of a mid term of appraisal of the Eleventh Five Year Plan is currently underway. The Planning Commission is expected to present a detailed assessment of the performance of the economy as a whole as well as the performance in individual sectors in comparison with the targets set in Eleventh Five Year Plan by December 2009. So far, the mid term appraisals have always been n international affair of the Planning Commission in India. This year, the internal appraisal process will also take into account what people say on it.
In this regard, an alliance of civil society organizations with Wada Na Todo Abhiyan have come forward to assist the review process of the government by providing an assessment of the performance of the ongoing plan from a people’s perspective. To prepare such assessment, Wada Na Todo Abhiyan and many other organizations across the country have come together to undertake massive consultations with common people and programme implementing agencies at village, districts and state level institutions of governance. The basic purpose of WNTA in undertaking this mammoth task is to consolidate voices of the marginalized sections of our society in reviewing the policies of the government. The Appraisal will seek to build a strong evidence base to critically assess the functioning of the Plan and thereby suggest future directions.
The Wada Na Todo process is expected to evolve a set of suggestions that may help our policy makers to assess the plan from a people’s perspective.
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