Modi set to review last 5-Year Plan

With the NDA government all set to do away with the Nehruvian legacy of five-year plan periods and aims to replace them with a 15-year vision document, Prime Minister Narendra Modi in a high level meeting scheduled for later this week will thoroughly review the ongoing 12th Plan period — which is going to be the last such plan zone — and discuss threadbare the ways to ensure a smooth transition towards a longer plan timeline.

According to highly placed sources, the Prime Minister is likely to hold the meeting of Niti Aayog’s governing council on July 16, where he will be given a detailed appraisal of the 12th Plan period (which will end on March 31, 2017 and will be replaced with the new 15-year vision document).

This would be the third meeting of Niti Aayog’s governing council after it came into being in January last year. The last meeting was held on July 18, 2015. Niti Aayog’s vice-chairman Arvind Panagariya, sources said, is scheduled to give a detailed appraisal of the 12th Plan period before the Prime Minister during the meeting, they added. He will also give an update to Mr Modi on the think-tank’s activities of the past one year. The 15-year vision document, which was unveiled by the Government a couple of months back, apart from infrastructure, social, health and other sectors, will also be focussing on internal security and defence, which have never been part of the previous five-year plan periods. This new period will start from April 1, 2017 and continue till 2030. The vision document also consists of a seven-year strategy period, which will focus on how to make the 15-year period implementable.

Mr Panagariya will be giving a presentation to Mr Modi on the approach to be taken by the Niti Aayog on preparing the vision document, sources further informed.

Apart from this, the Prime Minister will review the action taken by the states on the recommendations of the three chief ministers’ sub-groups which had given their reports to the PMO last year on Swachch Bharat Mission, skill development, and rationalisation of centrally sponsonred schemes.

Niti Aayog member Ramesh Chand, who looks after agriculture-related issues, is scheduled to give a presentation on doubling of agricultural income by 2026. The PMO had set up a panel under Niti Aayog last year to formulate a model law on leasing out of agricultural land. According to the proposed Agricultural Land Leasing Act, 2016, the land owner would be allowed to enter into a lease with the tenant for use of his agricultural land for agriculture and allied activities for a specified period, agreed by the owner and the cultivator. The allied activities will cover raising of food and non-food crops.