Samuel Philip Mathew
In January 2015, ahead of its
first full-fledged budget, the present NDA Government at the Centre had
announced the scrapping of the Planning Commission. The announcement of a NITI
Aayog to replace the Planning Commission was a regressive step which further
pushed the country into a market driven economy and privatization in all
spheres, at the expense of diluting even the inadequate schemes aimed at
improving people’s welfare that existed then. Whatever role the Planning
Commission had in allocating resources for the public sector and deploying
public investment keeping in mind the regional disparities has now ended.