New Delhi: Prime Minister Narendra Modi had cleared up the way for the replacement of Planning Commission of India with a small handpicked five-member think tank.
The new panel will most likely be led in an executive capacity by former union minister Suresh Prabhu, with free market economists Arvind Panagariya and Bibek Debroy as two more likely members.
Some sources claimed that the panel will be formally chaired by the prime minister and the announcement can come as early as Monday or a day or two after that.
An academic with wide science and technology expertise, perhaps from IITs, and a social science expert familiar with wider Sangh Parivar thinking are likely to be two other members of the as-yet-unnamed advisory body.
Economists Debroy and Panagariya have both been involved in advisory capacities with Narendra Modi’s core team before the Modi-led BJP won the general election in a landslide in May this year.
Some official sources said that the names of science and social science experts are in the process of being finalised.
One senior official said while most thinking on the new panel’s formation is over, two questions being addressed now are: first, the name of the think tank and, second, whether to accommodate at least partially a counterview on the size of the panel.
Senior official said that the new panel will be a strategic advisor, doing big thinking and thinking for the future. Among other priorities will be a blueprint for a manufacturing revival — a theme in the PM’s Independence Day speech. Resource allocation to states will move to the finance ministry.
Bureau Report
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