Three Year Action Agenda

•  NITI Aayog has replaced planning commission in 2014. In 2016, Prime minister office decided to replace five year plans with 15 year vision document. This document would be complemented with a seven-year strategy starting 2017-18 to convert the vision document into implementable policy and action as part of the National Development Agenda and a three-year draft action plan.
• Now, NITI aayog has released three-year draft action plan.

Highlights of the draft:
Three Year Revenue and Expenditure Framework:

• A tentative medium-term expenditure framework (MTEF) for the Centre is proposed. Based on forecasts of revenue, it proposes sector-wise expenditure allocation for three years.
• Proposes reduction of the fiscal deficit to 3% of the GDP by 2018-19, and the revenue deficit to 0.9% of the GDP by 2019-20.
• The roadmap consisting of shifting additional revenues towards high priority sectors: health, education, agriculture, rural development, defence, railways, roads and other categories of capital expenditure.

Agriculture: Doubling Farmers’ Incomes by 2022

• Reform the Agricultural Produce Marketing to ensure that farmers receive remunerative prices.
• Raise productivity through enhanced irrigation, faster seed replacement and precision agriculture.
• Shift to high value commodities: horticulture, animal husbandry, fisheries.
• A separate detailed roadmap issued by Member, Professor Ramesh Chand

Industry and Services: Job Creation

• Create Coastal Employment Zones to boost exports and generate high-productivity jobs.
• Enhance labour-market flexibility through reforming key laws
• Address the high and rising share of Non-Performing Assets (NPAs) in India’s banks through supporting the auction of larger assets to private asset reconstruction companies (ARCs), and strengthening the State Bank of India-led ARC.

Urban Development

• Need to bring down land prices to make housing affordable through increased supply of urban land
• Reform the Rent Control Act along the lines of Model Tenancy Act;
• Initiate titles of urban property
• Promote dormitory housing
• Address issues related to city transportation infrastructure and waste management.

Regional strategies

• Actions targeted aimed at improving development outcomes in the (i) North Eastern Region, (ii) Coastal Areas & Islands, (iii) North Himalayan states and (iv) Desert and Drought prone states.

Transport and Digital Connectivity

• Strengthen infrastructure in roadways, railways, shipping & ports, inland waterways and civil aviation.
• Ensure last-mile digital connectivity, particularly for e-governance and financial inclusion, through developing infrastructure, simplifying the payments structure and improving literacy.
• Facilitate Public-Private Partnerships.by reorienting the role of the India Infrastructure Finance Company Ltd. (IIFCL), introducing low cost debt instruments and operationalizing the National Investment Infrastructure Fund (NIIF).

Energy

• Adopt consumer friendly measures such as provision of electricity to all households by 2022, LPG connection to all BPL households, elimination of black carbon by 2022, and extension of the city gas distribution programme to 100 smart cities.
• Reduce the cross-subsidy in the power sector to ensure competitive supply of electricity to industry.
• Reform the coal sector by setting up a regulator, encouraging commercial mining and improving labour productivity.

Science & Technology

• Create comprehensive database of all government schemes and evaluate them for desirable changes
• Develop guidelines for PPPs in S&T to improve education and industry-academia linkages for demand-driven research
• Channel S&T to address development challenges such as access to education, improving agricultural productivity and wastewater management.
• Create a “National Science, Technology & Innovation Foundation” to identify and deliberate national issues, recommend priority interventions in S&T and prepare frameworks for their implementation
• Streamline the administration of the patent regime

Governance

• Re-calibrate the role of the government by shrinking its involvement in activities that do not serve a public purpose and expanding its role in areas that necessarily require public provision
• Implement the roadmap on closing select loss-making PSEs and strategic disinvestment of 20 identified CPSEs.
• Expand the government’s role in public health and quality education.
• Strengthen the civil services through better human resource management, e-governance, addressing anomalies in tenures of secretaries and increasing specialization and lateral entry.

Taxation and Regulation

• Tackle tax evasion, expand the tax base and simplify the tax system through reforms. For example, consolidate existing custom duty rates to a unified rate.
• Create an institutional mechanism for promoting competition through comprehensive review and reform of government regulations across all sectors.
• Strengthen public procurement

Education and Skill Development

• Shift the emphasis on the quality of school education paying particular attention to foundational learning
• Move away from input-based to outcome-based assessments
• Rank outcomes across jurisdictions
• Use ICT judiciously to align teaching to the student’s level and pace

Health

• Focus on public health through significantly increasing government expenditure on it, establishing a focal point and creating a dedicated cadre.
• Generate and disseminate periodic, district-level data as per uniform protocols.
• Formulate a model policy on human resources for health, implement a bridge course for nurses/AYUSH practitioners in primary care.
• Reform IMC Act and the acts governing homeopathy and Indian systems of medicine
• Launch the National Nutrition Mission; develop a comprehensive Nutrition Information System.

By: Vishal