Decentralised development planning towards an operational framework

Abstract

This dissertation critically examines the existing system of development planning in India for its suitability as a multilevel mode of planning. After discussing the related issues, it proceeds to give a framework for multilevel system of planning which is based upon a new conceptualisation of the process of production and distribution, also attempted in the dissertation. A field survey was conducted to understand the existing system of planning at the district, state and central levels. It led to the categorization of planning efforts into three types, depending upon the planning methodology being employed. These are: (1)economy wide/area planning, (2)commodity/departmental planning and (3) activity planning. The study reveals the limitations and ineffectiveness of feasibility analysis based activity planning exercise and of input-output technical coefficient-based coordination exercise. The factors contributing to the ineffectiveness ore identified and thereby, corrective suggestions could be made. A new approach to activity planning is recommended and improvements have been suggested for commodity planning exercise. It was found that what, in practice, is attempted is not really the planning of economy but is the planning of specific public interventions. The analysis led to an important distinction between indicative and prescriptive planning, the latter constituting the major task element in developmental planning. It is established that' the exercise in prescriptive planning will have to draw upon the literature in management, and that the planning system will be designed on the basis of "typologies of planning", and not the mathematical modeling. The total task of prescriptive planning is, therefore, divided into four categories and typology of planning is developed for each. The categories are3 (a),economy wide/area planning, (b) commodity (individually consumed goods) planning, (c) utility (jointly consumed goods) planning and (d) activity planning. The analysis also highlights that the key issue in a decentralised mode of decision making is the planning of utilities, as against the planning of commodities. It is also established that the main issue in the design of operational decentralised planning system is the development of typologies of coordination and control, and not the division of task and/or the economic logic of coordination among different levels, which are decided outside the main planning exercise. A conccptualisation of the process of production and distribution is, therefore, made to aid the utility and econcmywide/area planning. The conceptualization aids economy wide/area planning by providing a framework For conducting structural analysis of the economy. A number of hypotheses about the structure of Indian economy have been derived from this framework. In an important departure from existing methods, the framework treats public utilities not from the utilitarian (final consumption) view point but as the jointly consumed intermediate goods, required for production purposes. It is used to develop a decision model which, in turn, can be translated into a planning system. The mode and instruments of coordination and control for each category of prescriptive planning exercise are discussed. The framework also leads to a newer understanding of manifested entrepreneurship, which shows it to be quite responsive and elastic to public policy interventions rather than an inborn quality. Also, the use of public interventions in the market information matrix is identified as a potentially potent instrument of influencing market behaviour.