Ministries could not implement schemes on time:

In the review, projections for private investment in roads & highways, railways and ports have come down by over 50-80%. What is the reason for such a downward projection? If that is the scenario, how will the country invest $1 trillion in the 12th Plan, as announced by the Prime Minister recently?
The reason is not difficult to find. We have just seen a great economic crisis and in such an environment, investment from the private sector had to come down and that is why we have lowered our projections in the review.

Private investment in telecom and power has not come down. Why then has the private sector sentiment suffered only in roads, ports and railways?
See, telecom is a running sector. It caters to the retail market, which is so deep and wide in India that companies have ample opportunity to expand their portfolio. Moreover, there has been intense competition in this sector resulting in greater investment from companies as they look to spread their business. So I think the telecom sector is different from other infrastructure sector, and economic recession has not had any impact on it in terms of private investment. It’s interesting that during distress times, people tend to talk more (on the phone).

What is it with the road sector?
I would say it is very evident that we have procedural and policy bottlenecks that have impacted investments from the private sector in roads. If you look newspaper headlines, you will find that there are problems related with land acquisition in certain states. So even if the private sector is ready to invest in roads, problems in land acquisition have played spoilsport. But I think Kamal Nath (roads and highways minister) has done a great job in pushing forward the roads and highways projects. We hope that in future, investment from the private sector will go up.

You spoke about land acquisition problem for the roads sector. The same problem mars electricity generation sector, where a lot of projects are not able to get environment clearances. What can the Planning Commission do in such a scenario?
The deputy chairman (of the Planning Commission) is going to take a lead in this and he will meet all the concerned ministries. The meeting would be to look at issues related with forest cover and tiger reserves. We do not want to lose our tigers and we also do not want our forest cover to deplete, but there would certainly be some ways that we can find out after having a dialogue.

Do you see some resolution any time soon?
Yes, why not?

The mid-term review says that the problems with agriculture can be addressed only by state governments. Can’t the Planning Commission play any role in the agriculture sector?
The Planning Commission has already given states a scheme Rashtriya Krishi Vikas Yojna. Within that, states can demand schemes of their choice. Do they need more water bodies; do they need more extension, or anything else? So states can make a choice, according to the local needs.

Do you think the scheme is performing well?
Yes, the scheme is performing well. One thing that is missing is the extension (interaction between farmers and agriculture experts). It used to be a prevalent practice during the Green Revolution. The Centre and the States used to organise a lot of interface between farmers and experts, but over a period of time this practice was either discontinued or became very less focused. Today, wherever the extension mechanism is strong, you will find that growth of agriculture is good, whereas in areas where extension practice is not prevalent, they are lagging.
In Bundelkhand, we are trying to set up an extension centre. We are also trying to set up a university in that area. We are trying to do the same in Jhansi.

The Planning Commission has accepted that the 11th Plan has not moved as envisaged. The allocation to health and education sectors has been very low. Why did the Planning Commission fail in following the path that it had set?
Let me make it very clear, the Planning Commission is not the implementing body. The ministries have the mandate to implement the schemes. When a new scheme is announced, it is the ministries that have to formulate the implementing plan for that scheme and sometimes the ministries are not able to implement those schemes on time, hence the finance ministry doesn’t release the funds to them.

So do you mean that health and education ministries could not formulate schemes on time, hence they got lesser allocation?
Yes. These ministries could not get the things going and the finance ministry did not allocate them funds.
We have made a lot of investment in primary education, but as students pass out from primary schools, they would need to be accommodated in secondary schools.

What kind of strategy would you adopt to absorb such a huge number of students in the coming years?
The secondary education needs to be focused on providing skills. If you look at industrially advanced countries such as Germany, you will find that there is more focus on providing vocation training. While in our country we focus more on sending students to study general stuff, which actually does not make them employable. While formulating strategies for secondary education, we need to understand that people should be able to see the benefit of secondary education, only then they would attend those schools.

We need to provide choice to students, in terms of the education they would like to go for. We will have to focus more on vocational training in our secondary education so that people interested in getting knowledge that makes them employable, are able to try their hands at that.

There are about 18 social sector schemes that take about 45% of the gross budgetary support. But there is no way to check the implementation of those schemes. What is your view on this?
In the mid-term review, we have focused on developing a mechanism to improve the effectiveness of expenditure. We are going to set up a separate evaluation body. Once it gets operational, we would be able to assess implementation of the schemes better.