Planning Commission was crucial: Dr Manmohan Singh

New Delhi: Former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on Thursday said that the country’s economic policy has “no sense of direction” after the Modi government decided to scrap the Planning Commission.

Mr Singh also dismissed as “malicious” propaganda that no development had taken place during previous Congress regimes. “Economic policy has no sense of direction and this is largely because Planning Commission, with all its deficiencies....was a positive dynamic instrument of steering the country's economy,” Mr Singh, known as the architect of economic reforms in the country, said.

He was speaking at the inauguration of a National Convention here organised by the Indian Youth Congress. Mr Singh asked his party workers to tell people how the government’s decision to abolish the planning body has been “harmful” for the country.

The senior Congress leader said that as Indira Gandhi followed Jawaharlal Nehru’s path of planned development, she always emphasised the need of Planning Commission for a country as diverse as India and one which faced multifarious challenges. Recalling her contribution in various fields, including the Green revolution and the birth of Bangladesh, he said that Indira Gandhi believed that the plan body was necessary to address the development needs.

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