The planning commission has been incorporating the World Bank’s recommendations in its approach to the 12th five-year plan, a large group of activists has alleged, also opposing the plan panel’s move to have key social initiatives reviewed by the global body.

In a public statement, titled ‘The Commission Planning Against Poor?’, 52 activists including Medha Patkar and Aruna Roy have said: “The World Bank is an undemocratic institution which has pushed many developing countries into debt trap, influenced policies of countries to the extent that democratically elected governments have been weakened, paved way for the unbridled reign of private corporations; claiming to work for a world free of poverty, but pushing the poor to further destitution; and despite proven negative impacts, it continues to push ahead the neo-liberal model of growth.”

They have termed as “most shocking and unacceptable” the planning commission’s move to commission the Bank to review key anti-poverty schemes including the public distribution system (PDS), national rural employment guarantee scheme (NREGS), Rashtriya Suraksha Bima Yojana (RSBY) and Indira Awaas Yojana among others. The World Bank report, ‘Social protection for a changing India,’ was released in May. “We oppose and reject it in strongest possible terms. It is shocking to see how the UPA II government is undermining India’s sovereignty. In 2004, the UPA government had tried to induct the World Bank into the decision making of the planning commission directly, and had to back-track following the strong public outcry against the move.”

The activists have argued that when the country has “abundant wealth of competent economists and economic institutions”, it was surprising that the plan panel went to the Bank for a review. The World Bank review report has recommended a cash transfer mechanism instead of ODS in the current form. It has also recommended the controversial public private partnership (PPP) as a model for social protection. The activists, most of whom are associated with a variety of grassroots movements, fear that the World Bank review was only a precursor to the next five-year plan. Their statement says, “The recommendations of the report strongly resonate in the issues to the approach to 12th five-year plan. The one most significant common aspect is a clear bend towards PPP in social sectors like health and education. “In the presentation of issues for the approach for 12th plan it is clearly mention that the role of PPP in secondary and tertiary healthcare must be expanded.”

The planning commission is giving final touches to the approach paper to the 12th plan, and it will be presented before the full plan panel meet sometime in July. “From the similarities between the issues to approach the 12th plan and the World Bank conducted study and with likely the approach paper to be out anytime soon, it seems much of the social protection would be defined by the recommendations of the Bank study,” the statement notes.