15th Five-Year Plan of Keralam will be a 'living document,' says Planning Board Vice-Chairperson K.M. Chandrasekhar

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The Keralam State Planning Board envisions the 15th Five-Year Plan of the State, covering the 2027-2032 period, as a “living document” that is “specific, measurable, achievable, result-oriented and time-bound,” according to board Vice-Chairperson K.M. Chandrasekhar.  

Speaking to The Hindu, Mr. Chandrasekhar, who is a former Cabinet Secretary, said the Plan will be built on a ‘Smart Model,’ targeting a higher growth trajectory for the State and aiming to address critical issues facing the State such as the unemployment rate. Work on the Plan has started and the Planning Board hopes to have it out by the middle of 2027, he said. The Approach Paper to the 15th Plan document will be out well before that.

“Work on the 15th Plan has started. We are holding district-level meetings. We are collecting all the necessary data. We have also done a lot of work on the approach paper. We now have to place it before the full board. Then we will put it out for views. If there is something to be integrated into our structure, we will do it,” he said.

The Planning Board is roping in the Indian Institute of Management-Kozhikode (IIM-Kozhikode) as its lead consultant for the work, he said. Through an October 3 notification, the board has also invited consulting firms, think tanks, research institutions and other professional organisations for providing “specialised professional, research and technical support” for the drafting of the Plan.

Keralam’s Five-Year Plans serve as guiding frameworks for government departments to design specific policies and programmes. Annual plans are formulated every year, in alignment with the Five-Year Plan.

Resource mobilisation, Mr. Chandrasekhar indicated, will be a major challenge during the 15th Plan period as it was during the 14th. It may be recalled that a White Paper on the State’s fiscal health, which Chief Minister  V.D. Satheesan laid in the State Assembly in June, had observed that Kerala’s fiscal structure “is under serious and growing strain.” The 14th Five-Year Plan (2022-2027) document had noted that mobilising resources for that five-year period would be a “challenging task.”

With regard to the 15th Plan period, Mr. Chandrasekhar observed that Keralam is “desperately short of money.” “We will have to be very clear about what we are doing. The government can raise only so much money. So we have to get money from everywhere; whether it is the private sector or local bodies, banks or cooperatives. We will have to get money into investment; not into the government, but into investment,” he said.

Mr. Chandrasekhar indicated that the 15th Plan will be based entirely on a ‘Smart Model,’ that is specific, measurable, achievable, result-oriented, and time-bound.  “We are not going to make it a plain written document or a ‘dead’ document. Every project will have to have objectives and a time-frame. And we will also create a mechanism to monitor that on a regular basis,” he said.

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