Planning Commission gets taste of 'Peepli Live'

- NDFS Desk

It is possibly unprecedented in the history of the Planning Commission to make its officials watch Bollywood movie 'Peepli Live' to sensitise its members about the common man's perception of major government programmes, which they so meticulously plan and approve. The top brass of the Plan panel, led by deputy chairman Montek Singh Ahluwalia, today watched the movie.

Peepli Live has earned praise for aptly depicting the apathy of the bureaucracy, local politicians and a TRP-conscious media to the plight of a debt-ridden peasant who had pledged to commit suicide after failing to repay the loan he had taken for tilling his land. "Since the film talks about the perception of people on the development programmes and so on, we thought this will be quite useful for the Commission's officers to see the film," Ahluwalia said while proceeding to watch the special screening of the film. Talking about the need for a special screening of the film, Ahluwalia said this kind of initiative should enlighten the panel's experts to gauge the impression people have about development schemes. Sources said the Commission would soon begin a comprehensive review of the schemes and do a real time stock taking of their performance. Ahluwalia's assertions come in the midst of the Commission readying itself to draft the 12th five year plan in its quest to broadbase it and make it more common-man centric.

"We were not looking for answers. They will keep coming gradually. All we wanted that people should react and think about the plight of common man," writer-director Anusha Rizvi said, while talking about the reactions of the officers of the Commission.