IIM-A professor on national panel

The government of India has appointed Ravindra H. Dholakia, professor of economics at IIM Ahmedabad, on the high-level expert committee for public expenditure management under the chairmanship of Dr. C. Rangarajan. 

The 18-member committee has been set up to suggest measures for efficient management of public expenditure by suggesting an action plan for abolishing the present system of classifying expenditure into plan and non-plan.

The committee, is expected to submit its report by the end of December, 2010. Various anomalies and inconsistencies in the present classification of expenditure have been blamed for the inefficient management of public resources.

Professor Dholakia, who has 33 years of experience in teaching economics, has been a faculty in IIM-A since 1985. The professor recently visited Mongolia as a UN consultant and was a member of the sixth central pay commission in India. He has written about 39 monographs, 16 books, and more than 130 research papers published in journals of national and international repute.

The other members of the committee also include director, National Institute of Public Finance and Policy Dr MG Rao, Dr Nitin Desai, an honourary professor from ICRIER, and director of Madras School of Economics, DK Srivastava.

Secretary of Planning Commission, deputy governor of the Reserve Bank of India, secretary of the department of expenditure and chief economic adviser of the department of economic affairs will also be members of the committee.