JNU Professor Screws The Planners - Including Chacha

Today I read this tremendous article by Dipankar Gupta, former professor of Sociology at Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU). I have often seen Professor Gupta on television - speaking sense. I have also read some of his earlier columns. It is great to see people like him - who could have remained "bureaucrat-professors" - going "public" and opposing the system. In the article of today, he takes on our Central Planners - and demolishes them all, including Chacha Manmohan himself.



Gupta begins by saying that our "economist-turned-administrators" always speak with two hands - "on the one hand and on the other hand" - and he gives many examples of this from a recent document that has issued from the Planning Commission titled "Approach Paper to the Eleventh Five-Year Plan." He says:

This document asserts that the Plan's major component is to spur private investment, 'but' substantial increases must be secured for public resources. Likewise, small and marginal farmers need to be encouraged 'but' also middle and large farmers....

The Approach Paper recognises that agricultural productivity must rise 'but' no dramatic technological breakthrough is in sight. There is also the need to narrow the gap between actual agricultural yields and those in trial runs, 'but' it is hard to get region-wise, crop-wise intelligence on this.

Recognising agriculture's poor form over the past decades, the Planning Commission wants farmers to think differently, even big. Experts assure the cultivators that their fears regarding the move from agriculture to horticulture are exaggerated. They should diversify into high-value products like fruits and flowers and climb up the value chain. 'But', as food stocks are dangerously low, they must not neglect cereal production either. What, then, should a simple farmer do?....

The Approach Paper goes into honest details on how deficient our health and educational services are, especially when it comes to the poor. The admissions are startling. Children cannot read simple sentences nor do elementary sums. This is not surprising, the experts argue, when 30 per cent of schoolteachers do not have a higher secondary certificate. Is there a way out?



Obviously, it is very urgent for us to plan interventions in education and health. Schools need to be upgraded, 'but' teachers don't work; likewise rural health should be improved 'but' doctor absenteeism is rampant. We need high-quality technical education 'but' there is a shortage of qualified instructors. No matter which way we turn, for every possible action there is an equal and opposite inaction.

Gupta then goes on to quote similar equivocations from Chacha's address in Geneva, as head of the South Commission while serving as the chief central planner here. Chacha's talk was titled "Development Policy Research: The Task Ahead." These quotes from this address delivered in Geneva show what a schizoid cup of tea our Chacha must be:

It is not fair to lay the blame for slow development on excessive state apparatuses, 'but' developing countries need to trim their government machineries.



De-regulation is important in order to de-politicise the economic process, 'but' politics cannot be wished away.



Competition is good 'but', as Adam Smith warned, it requires political control.



Further expansion of the public sector is not the way to go, 'but' private sector cannot do the job by itself.



The public sector is not innovative, 'but' how can it be for it operates in an environment where monopolies are strong.



Export orientation is desirable, 'but' what will happen if every country drops its local markets and begins to export?

The great thing about this article is its insulting tone - one that is richly deserved. I personally find it a telling sign of our times that serve to illustrate that not only "functional legitimacy," but also "intellectual legitimacy" is at a precariously low ebb.



So, should there even be a Eleventh 5-Year Plan? Or should the entire exercise be junked?



Have we as a nation had enough of Central Planning?



Your opinions will decide.



And kudos to Professor Gupta for his courage in speaking out.