Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz, chairing the second meeting of the Planning Commission here on Tuesday, assigned the Planning Commission the role of a think tank and tasked it to prepare 'Vision 2030' to make Pakistan a developed industrial state, having modern infrastructure and professional skills to face the challenges of globalisation upfront and take its economic benefits on long-term basis.
The Planning Commission's meeting was held after 22 years. The first meeting was held in 1984, during the Zia regime. Deputy Chairman Dr Akram Shaikh and other members briefed the Prime Minister on the functioning of different departments of the commission.
The Prime Minister said that the Planning Commission should take the lead and perform the role of a think-tank to provide inputs to the government for policy-making. He said its immediate assignment would be to study the situation on the ground on the economic front and prepare the short-, medium- and long-term strategies ranging from 5 to 25 years for all key sectors of the economy.
He directed the Deputy Chairman to take all necessary steps to make the Planning Commission a real brain, and prepare working papers for federal and provincial ministries and co-ordinate among them to ensure that various strategies remain in line with the laid down principles.
Shaukat said that the Planning Commission should also enhance sectoral expertise and follow an objective approach to help the government sustain growth rates between 6 and 8 percent for 10 years.
He also assigned it the role of facilitators to raise investment to 20 percent, exports to 15 percent to GDP, besides increasing literacy rate, through quality education, and health services, develop infrastructure compatible to globalisation needs, poverty alleviation, industrialisation with strong linkages to SMEs and developing global skills and creating job opportunities.
The Prime Minister said planning should based on vertical and horizontal integration to avoid overlapping and duplication that can result in waste of the national resources.
He said that the Planning Commission should guide the federal ministries to make project management more efficient and, over a period of time, help them to build their own capacities to get out of the micro management of projects.
The Prime Minister also wanted the Planning Commission to play a vibrant role for achieving food, energy and water security. Other areas where he wanted a proactive role of the commission were development of modern infrastructure and enhanced productivity to benefit from globalisation and transforming Pakistan into a knowledge-based economy.
The Prime Minister said that the Planning Commission should come up with short-, medium-, and long-term plans to deal with sewerage and drainage problems.
Talking to Business Recorder after the meeting, Dr Akram Shaikh said that the Planning Commission was well-equipped to take up the new role. He hinted at taking some structural changes to take on the assigned job of a facilitator and think-tank upfront.
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