This then is the pattern. And what does Chidambram propose to do about the matter? He sets it out in his new Budget:

‘I think we do not pay enough attention to outcomes as we do to outlays; or to physical targets as we do to financial targets; or to quality as we do to quantity. Government therefore proposes to put in place a Central Plan Schemes Monitoring System (CPSMS) that will be implemented as a Plan scheme of the Planning Commission. A comprehensive Decision Support System and Management Information System will also be established. The intended outcome is to generate and monitor scheme-wise and State-wise releases for about 1,000 Central Plan and centrally sponsored schemes in 2008-09.’

Pray, what is the reason to believe that this new central scheme of the Planning Commission will work better than the 1000 central schemes of the Planning Commission that it is to monitor? Then follow the currently fashionable words, ‘Government also intends to strengthen evaluation. Some ministries have started concurrent evaluation. This needs to be supplemented by independent evaluations conducted by research institutions. The Planning Commission will authorise such evaluations of the major schemes and complete the task by the time of the mid-term review of the Eleventh Plan.’

Pray, why will the new evaluations authorised by the Planning Commission be more independent than the innumerable ones that it has authorised in the past? Why will they be more independent than the countless evaluations that have been done independently of the Commission in the past?

... contd.