Vijay Kelar, a former financial secretary and veteran policy, has been associated with several important reform initiatives for years.
In an interview to Toi, Kelarn, who also served as Chair of the 13th Finance Commission, called for governance and administrative reform and knowledge-based policies.
Quotes: What should be the focus of policy in the medium term to length? Compared to 1991, there are several new problems.
You have had a number of successful reform steps in 1991 but, in some areas, there are shortcomings.
So, we have to handle both of them – new challenges and some previously because there are areas where we have not made enough progress.
In the Kelkar-Shah book, ‘In Republican Service: Arts and Sciences for Economics’, we have emphasized governance reform.
Governance Reform includes strengthening “legal rules” through legal, judicial and administrative reform.
New challenges for our country have emerged in the last 30 years in addition to continuing to achieve higher and fair growth achievements.
New challenges are caused by improving global climate and environmental stress and consequently existential challenges for our planet.
It now requires greater attention and we need policy reforms to make our growth green.
Then there is a matter of our city management so this is properly regulated and becomes a growth machine such as big cities on the continent.
The third problem is that the old build human capital, which means the supply of public health and higher level education is more effective.
Human Capital Association Wand Magic to make India World innovation capital.
Do you think reform is now difficult to do? In our book, we called the 1991 reform as Mark II.
Reforming Mark I to Industrialization was launched by Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru through the Planning Commission.
Both in Mark I and Mark II reform, many thoughts went to the back of the transformational episode.
Mark II reform was also based on solid intellectual foundations placed by scholars such as Professor Jagdish Bhagwati, Arun Shourie and many other thinkers who worked on the challenges of Indian development.
Of course Dr.
Manchan Singh’s work is also one of the main sources of basic intellectuals for reform 1991.
Similar intellectual inputs are needed now and detailed work needs to be done for the third generation of reforms, or recommend reform.
What do you think to do to expand the market for reform? The first thing is the knowledge and analysis that is far more detailed.
Take examples of recent problems that we face on vaccination problems.
This is because we don’t have the right data, and which causes an inadequate policy.
This further is compounded due to inadequate transparency and over-centralization.
More knowledge, better analysis and greater decentralization will lead to knowledge-based policy design.
More knowledge and transparency will indeed lead to a much better policy.
We also need to issue more about social science research and improve data quality.
I am worried that data quality has deteriorated for years and this challenge is even more acute at the state and city level.
What reforms do you see in the next 30 years? The next reform must include reform governance, urban affairs and empowerment of state governments, cities & local bodies.
To meet the Paris climate objectives and increased green growth, we will need a much greater decentralization of democracy.
What is the difference you see in your generation of civil servants and now? My mentor Lovraj Kumar once told me never talked about your predecessor or your successor!
‘The intellectual foundation needed for reform 3.0’
