NITI Aayog rolls out three year action agenda -Governance Now

NITI Aayog rolls out three year action agenda

The three year action agenda is in draft form and will be soon put in the public domain.

Pratap Vikram Singh | April 25, 2017 | New Delhi

#NITI Aayog #action agenda #Bibek Debroy #strategy agenda #SBI #electricity #CPSEs

Even as a vision and a strategy agenda is in "advanced stages" of finalisation at NITI Aayog, the government think tank has released a draft three year action agenda for public consultation.

The draft action agenda, divided in seven parts and 24 chapters, proposes to reduce the fiscal deficit to 3 percent of the GDP by 2018-19, and revenue deficit to 0.9 percent of the GDP by 2019-20, said Arvind Panagariya, vice chairman, NITI Aayog. The draft proposes a tentative mid-term expenditure framework for the centre. It proposes sector wise expenditure allocation for three years.

It proposes to enhance labour market flexibility by reforming key laws. It also highlights the issue of non-performing assets (NPA). It propounds addressing "high and rising share of NPA in India's banks through supporting the auction of larger assets to private asset reconstruction companies and strengthening the State Bank of India led ARC (asset reconstruction companies)".

In urban development, it suggests to bring down prices to make housing affordable through increased supply of land.

In the area of energy, it advocates for "consumer friendly measures such as provision of electricity for all households by 2022, LPG connection to all BPL households, elimination of black carbon by 2022 and extension of city gas distribution programme to 100 smart cities”.

It also proposes reduction of cross subsidy in the power sector to ensure competitive supply of electricity to industry and reform the coal sector by setting up a regulator, encouraging commercial mining and improving labour productivity.

It underlines implementation of the roadmap on closing loss making PSEs and strategic disinvestment of 20 identified CPSEs. It proposes to “expand the government’s role in public health and quality education”.

It advocates tackling “tax evasion, expanding the tax base and simplifying the tax system through reforms”.

The new development agenda focuses on India 15 years down the line. It focuses on decentralized planning and development. It follows the government’s broader framework of ‘sabka saath, sabka vikas’, said Bibek Debroy, member, NITI Aayog.

This marks an end to the five year plans, which shaped the development agenda of India after the independence – making the 12th five year plan, which ended this year, as the last of the five year plans. Now the government will have a vision document focusing on 15 years, the strategy agenda focused on seven years and an action plan for three years.

The three year agenda requires executive action. The seven year strategy requires legislative action and the 15 years vision agenda will require institutional and constitutional changes, Debroy said.

The three year action agenda is still in draft form and will be soon put in the public domain.

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