HOPEFUL PLANNING

(a view on the proposals of Kerala State Planning Board meeting on Friday)

The meeting of Kerala State Planning Board on 14/12/2007, chaired by Chief Minister VS Achuthanandan has proposed the 7,605 Crore Rupees annual plan which recorded Rs 655 crore increase compared with the current plan of Rs 6,956 crore. It giving a light to the hopes of the state, which is lagging behind in some of the crucial growth indexes among some historical achievements. This declaration is noted with some important policy deviation from the declared political policies of the ruling front.

Increase in allocations to Govt. Departments
The plan allocation of various Govt. Departments has increased rather than the Local Self Government Organisations as per the vision of Mr Prabhath Patnaik, Deputy Chairman of the State Planning Board. This move is considered to be an important deviation from the policies of ruling left political parties and ministers including Finance Minister. But it is more important that the interest of the state rather than the political considerations and therefore debate should be on the basis of the utility of the policy by avoiding the subject of left deviation. Decentralization and People’s Planning are the subjects to be welcomed but it is not rational to allocate fund to Local Self Government Organisations in an uncontrolled manner. This is the practical experience that this kind of fund allocation badly affects better plan utilization and the quality of rural and urban development. Lack of Trained officials and elected representatives leading the situations to poor plan utilization in grass root level and partialities and corruption. When a Government is decentralizing power and fund to grass root levels it should ensure that responsibilities and effectiveness are passing from bottom to top. But unfortunately here no actions have been taken to improve the quality of plan utilization and to improve people’s participation in Grama Sabhas. This will affect the speed of development of the state. The phenomenon of poor fund utilizations allocated to various developmental projects and preparation of surplus budget by some of the LSGOs are not good for a scares recourses state. Therefore the decision to allocate considerably more fund to Govt. departments than LSGOs will bring an order for our economic management.

Increase in Social Sector Allocation
The increase of social sector allocation considering sectors like health, education, rural small-scale projects, agriculture, and traditional industries as thrust areas, is an expected and timely action. But it is important that how the fund utilizations are taking place. If the ‘super specialty policy’ is continuing in health sector the number of fever deaths will increase in future also. The situation of increasing super specialty hospitals and lack of beds and medicines in primary health centers will leads to more complicated problems in the sector. The existence of super specialty hospitals is based on the occurrence of deceases at regular intervals in the society but the objective of primary health centers is to protect the society from the deceases. Then which of these will be important?

The change, which this Government is trying to bring to the educational sector is not at all acceptable. The scheme, which we can call it as ‘panchayat education’ has already been opposed by various student, teacher, and parents associations. It is better to bring more centralization in syllabus, teaching methods and valuation than decentralization. Public is in deep concern with the resent statements of some ministers about the replacement of rice food with chicken fry, egg and milk in schools. Lot of ambitious projects in agriculture sector is in pending with the lack of co-ordination between various government departments. It is the duty of a good Government to seek new channels instead of dependence of failed mechanism to reach help to the needy sections without interruption.

The proposed plan extending full support to IT, Truism and Industrial development. Moreover the state is going to get a Central assistant of Rs 100 crores under Rashtreeya Krishi Vikasana Yojana (RKVY), which is not included in the plan proposed. In the current fiscal Rs 60 crore is the sate’s allocation under RKYV scheme. These points will definitely give some movements to the development dreams of malayalees.

Approach towards Foreign Loans
The proposed plan is silent about the receipt or attempt to receive any foreign credit. This will be in tune with the political stands of LDF particularly the stand of the Chief Minister. Blind stand against foreign credit is not rational but if the economic conditions of the state not demanding foreign credit we can very well stand off from the foreign credit based planning particularly the state’s public dept is in peek. This decision will give more financial freedom. More over the fund utilization of various foreign credits based projects are also not satisfactory. In the current fiscal it is only 5%. Credit from the public also a good idea under this kind of situations and it will give a good effect in the current inflated economy also.

Public-Private Participation
It is a point to welcome that the government will allow private participation in 100% state funded projects. But the consensus between the Government, various political parties and trade unions in this regard is necessary. Incidents like uncertainty over Vallarpadam project due to frequent labour strike should not be occurred in future. This will stop the investment flows and the development of the state.

Poor Plan Utilization.
As on 30th November 2007 states total plan utilization is only 26% which is not good for speedy current circumstances even though it is a better figure than the previous year’s. We should move forward with steps to improve our plan utilization. The ministers from various political parties in a coalition ministry should act apart from their own political considerations and that is why we can attain better co-ordination of departments and controlling and effectiveness ensuring of the beaurocracy.

Conclusion
We may hope that Malayalees will get a plan proposal, which give more hopes of development, after going through the Cabinet meeting (where it can change) and Central Planning Board as a New Year Gift.

Kumar. R. Samyogee