New Delhi: Giving preference to technocrats over politicians, Prime Minister Narendra Modi is expected to choose ‘specific area’ experts to be members of the new body, which will replace the defunct Planning Commission.
Indications are there that the announcement of the formation of such a body is likely to be made on Sunday itself along with the expansion of the Union council of ministers.
Sources said preference was being given to technocrats with an aim to give the desired push to physical infrastructure in the country. The new body, “unlike its previous avatar,” is also likely to lose its control over social sector schemes.
This in a way is going to mean that the PM intends to reinvent the existing Planning Commission to its original form, which was divorced from being political.
“Over a period of time, with having overarching control over Central ministries and state governments, the focus of the Plan panel shifted from providing expert views on different pressing social and economic subjects to settling politics through economic power,” a source close to the process of finalising the shape and function of the new body said.
