In a world of technological tsunamis, India’s think tank must rediscover its depth

By Ravishankar Kalyanasundaram

When India created the National Development Council (NDC) in 1952, the idea was disarmingly simple: every chief minister, every cabinet minister, and the Prime Minister would sit under one roof to plan the country’s future. No state would be an outsider, no policy a surprise. It was a forum where arguments were expected and agreement was hard-won, but once a Plan was adopted, it was our Plan.

The NDC was not a creature of the Constitution or statute. It was born by executive will — and yet, for six decades, it carried the moral weight of a national covenant. Every Five-Year Plan that defined India’s public investment — from the Green Revolution to rural electrification — carried its signature. Its purpose was not only to approve plans but to legitimise ambition through consensus. It reviewed, it argued, and it advised. It did so in a spirit that Nehru had once called “cooperative federalism before the phrase existed.”

Its last meeting, the fifty-seventh, took place in December 2012, approving the Twelfth Plan. After that, the NDC simply faded into bureaucratic silence — not formally abolished, just uninvited to the future. By 2015, its place was taken by NITI Aayog, a body meant to be nimbler, less controlling, and more of a “think tank.” The Planning Commission had become synonymous with red tape; NITI Aayog promised fresh air.

A decade later, the air feels thinner.

The promise of cooperation, the practice of distance

NITI Aayog began with a noble slogan — Team India. It was meant to promote “cooperative federalism,” where states shape the national agenda rather than merely follow it. But cooperation, as experience shows, is not a slogan; it is a structure.

Unlike the Planning Commission, NITI Aayog has no authority over financial allocations. The Finance Ministry decides the grants; the Aayog can only advise. Without the power to disburse or direct funds, its ability to compel attention is limited. Policy papers are published, dashboards built, yet many state capitals see them as distant — too Delhi-centric, too abstract.

The discontent shows. At the ninth Governing Council meeting in 2023, ten states and Union Territories — mostly opposition-ruled — chose to stay away. The boycott was explained in the language of budgetary grievance and political protest. But beneath it lies a deeper fatigue: a sense that consultation has turned ceremonial.

In the days of the NDC, the argument was the process. Chief ministers sparred with Union Ministers on irrigation, education, and power. Today, the absence of that open forum has narrowed both dialogue and dissent. A think tank that only sends advice upward becomes, at best, a consultant — not the conductor of a national symphony.

The world changed while we debated

This institutional fatigue comes at a time when the world is running a new race. Artificial intelligence, robotics, quantum computing, 5G, genetic engineering — each wave is less an industry and more a civilisational shift. Nations now plan in decades, not years, and the winners are those who match political foresight with technological agility.

For India, this means more than adopting new gadgets. It means repurposing ministries, reskilling millions of workers, and ensuring that MSMEs — the very backbone of our employment — are not left stranded by automation. It means forging long-term partnerships with countries that share our technology goals, so we are not locked out of emerging supply chains or digital standards.

Yet who does this planning? The line ministries act within silos; the Finance Ministry looks at fiscal space; NITI Aayog drafts concept notes. But the conductor’s baton is missing. The Planning Commission may have been heavy-handed, but at least it could convene, coordinate, and command.

Today, we have ideas without instruments.

The states drift, the centre defends

The politics of federalism have become sharper. The “double-engine” rhetoric — implying that BJP-ruled states will progress faster under a BJP-led centre — has not helped the perception of neutrality. Opposition-ruled states cite discrimination in grants and infrastructure projects; the centre insists that performance, not politics, drives priority. The truth, as always, lies in the shadows between rhetoric and reality.

But what suffers in the crossfire is national cohesion. Development projects demand continuity beyond election cycles — in irrigation, energy, logistics, education. When states disengage from the national platform, planning becomes fragmented. Each builds its own bridge, often ending halfway.

A federal democracy as large as India cannot afford such dissonance. The NDC once provided a stage where differences were aired before decisions were made. NITI Aayog could play that role — but only if it is seen as an honest broker, not a distant secretariat. That requires not just structural change but moral capital, earned through listening.

What the NDC once had — and NITI must regain

The NDC’s genius lay not in its bureaucracy but in its ritual of togetherness. By bringing the Prime Minister, Union Ministers, and Chief Ministers face to face, it transformed development from a budget line into a shared enterprise. It was a political space where a farmer’s irrigation canal in Punjab and a port in Tamil Nadu could both find their logic within the same national story.

NITI Aayog, for all its data dashboards and policy briefs, lacks that emotional centre. It speaks the language of innovation but not always of inclusion. To recapture the NDC’s spirit, it must go beyond advising and begin anchoring — coordinating long-term strategies across ministries and states, especially in technology transitions, skilling, and infrastructure.

We are no longer planning for roads and dams alone. We are planning for algorithms, satellites, and energy storage. The future will not wait for the slow rhythm of departmental notes. It requires a planning institution that can act like a national brain — thinking strategically, moving swiftly, yet keeping every limb in sync.

The observer’s question

As an observer of these shifts, one can’t help noticing the paradox: we replaced the Planning Commission for being too rigid, and we may now need something stronger for being too loose. The pendulum has swung from command to consult, but somewhere along the way, coordination fell through the gap.

Can India, with its discordant centre-state relations, ensure strategic planning at the scale that new technologies demand? Can we build a national grid of ideas that powers every region, not just the politically convenient ones?

Perhaps the answer lies not in resurrecting the old NDC but in re-imagining its spirit — an institutional forum that unites all states behind one developmental map, not a divided scoreboard.

Because planning, at its core, is not about control. It is about continuity — the bridge between a nation’s past struggles and its future dreams. And if we fail to build that bridge together, we may find ourselves standing on islands of progress, watching the tide of time pull the mainland away.