Does India need another tryst with the plan panel?

In a budget speech made 75 years ago, the then finance minister John Mathai announced the setting up of a new expert body to coordinate and guide economic activities in India – the Planning Commission.

- Pramit Bhattacharya

Mathai resigned soon after the new body was set up as he felt that it would infringe on the powers of the Union cabinet.

Mathai was a well-known economist of that era, and his public disavowal cast a shadow over the expert body. It was left to Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru and his trusted band of technocrats to repair the damage. The planning body survived and came to play a pivotal role in shaping India's economic destiny.

The Planning Commission's intellectual heft played a big role in establishing its credibility. Research produced in the Planning Commission stirred and shaped debate on the key economic issues of the day. Two individuals played a major role in establishing the Commission's reputation as a knowledge powerhouse in its early years – PC Mahalanobis and Pitambar Pant.

Mahalanobis is remembered by economists largely for his contribution to the second five-year plan. His more important legacy was the statistical and policy infrastructure for governing modern India. The major databases economists and analysts use today to track the economy such as the National Accounts series and the National Sample Survey (NSS), were shaped by Mahalanobis and his colleagues in the early years after Independence.