Chief ministers back PM Narendra Modi on plan panel change

New Delhi: With Prime Minister Naredra Modi calling a meeting of chief ministers on Sunday to discuss the broad contours of the new body that will replace the “Nehruvian” Planning Commission, there seemed to be a consensus among participants that more powers in development planning and execution should be devolved to the states.

Congress chief ministers, particularly from Assam and Karnataka, however, strongly opposed any move to dismantle the existing 65-year-old body established by India’s first PM Jawaharlal Nehru.

As a follow-up to his Independence Day announcement from the Red Fort that the existing plan body would “soon” be replaced by a “new institution”, Mr Modi was with the chief ministers for nearly seven hours at his residence on Sunday, deliberating on what should be the future shape of plan panel’s new avatar.

Making a strong pitch for “cooperative federalism” and his concept of “Team India”, the PM also cited his predecessor Manmohan Singh, saying he too had said on April 30 that the current structure has “no futuristic vision in the post-reform period.” Barring the Chief Ministers of West Bengal, Mizoram and poll-bound Jammu and Kashmir and Jharkhand, the Chief Ministers from all the other states attended the meeting.