But, on the 68th anniversary of the country's independence, Prime Minister Narendra Modi finally condemned to oblivion the lingering vestige of India's early attempt to mimic the Soviet command economy.
Its 12th Five-Year Plan, covering the period until 2017, will go unfulfilled.
"Times have changed since the Planning Commission was created," Modi said on Friday, in a speech to mark India's liberation from British colonial rule. A new institution would be set up "in a short span of time", added the 63-year-old leader, who swept to power in a general election in May.
Wearing a white kurta tunic and saffron turban, Modi spoke from the ramparts of the 17th-century Red Fort in old Delhi, continuing a tradition begun by independent India's first Prime Minister, Jawaharlal Nehru.
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Yet while respecting one tradition, Modi broke with another.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi inspecting the guard of honour at Red Fort on August 15, 2014.
It was Nehru, a socialist who admired Josef Stalin's drive to industrialize the Soviet Union, who in 1950 set up — and chaired — the Planning Commission to map out a development path for India's agrarian economy.
The collapse of Soviet communism in 1991 killed off Gosplan — as that country's state planning committee was known. Yet its Indian counterpart survived the ensuing economic shock and cautious market reforms that followed.
'Parking lot' for cronies
Modi never had a high opinion of the Planning Commission — as leader of the industrial powerhouse of Gujarat, he stunned the panel last year by turning up at a meeting with a video that accused it of high-handedness and hobbling the states with one-size-fits-all policies.
This June, a government-backed report suggested replacing the Planning Commission with a thinktank more in line with a US-style council of economic advisors.
"Since the Planning Commission has defied attempts to reform it to bring it in line with the needs of a modern economy and the trend of empowering the states, it is proposed that the Planning Commission be abolished," the report said.
PM Narendra Modi during his Independence Day speech at Red Fort in New Delhi.
Arun Shourie, an influential member of Modi's ruling Bharatiya Janata Party, had derided the Planning Commission — set in a hulking New Delhi building with 500-600 employees — as a "parking lot" for political cronies and unwanted bureaucrats.
In 2012, it was pilloried for spending $50,000 to renovate two office toilets, and then it was lampooned for suggesting that citizens who consumed goods worth 27 rupees or more a day (44 US cents) were not poor — in a country where millions struggle to survive on less than $2 a day.
Centralized power, not planning
Modi has focused on bringing to order India's unruly state apparatus. He has beefed up the Prime Minister's Office, ordered bureaucrats to get to work on time and — in a law passed this week — restricted the power of judges to appoint each other.
In so doing, Modi has taken a leaf from the book of another leader in Moscow — Vladimir Putin. Following the chaos of the 1990s, the Russian leader established a centralized "vertical of power" that underpins his power in the Kremlin.
Political analysts and economists say that Modi's focus on process — summed up by his slogan "maximum governance, minimum government" — should increase the effectiveness of his administration and yield benefits to voters over time.
Vows to fix broken government, but no big bang reforms
The Prime Minister voiced dismay at the government in-fighting he found on assuming office in May and vowed to fire up the bureaucracy to deliver results in a country desperately in need of growth and development.
In his speech, Modi emphasised the need for better governance but announced none of the sweeping market reforms that many who handed him India's biggest election mandate in three decades have been awaiting.
Critics say that Modi, who spoke for more than an hour from the ramparts of the 17th-century Red Fort, from where Mughal kings ruled Delhi for two centuries, scores high on oratory but has delivered on few of his election campaign promises.
PM Narendra Modi during his Independence Day speech at Red Fort in New Delhi.
He did, however, unveil an initiative on Friday to improve access to financial services for the two-fifths of Indians who lack a bank account and are often at the mercy of moneylenders who charge extortionate interest.
A newcomer to central government after running industrialized Gujarat for more than 13 years, Modi, 63, bemoaned New Delhi's bureaucratic disarray.
"I saw that even in one government there were dozens of governments. It was as if each had their own fiefdoms," he said, touching on a key concern for many Indians, who have come to revile the layers of bureaucracy and rampant corruption.
"The government is not an assembled entity but an organic entity. I have tried to break down these walls," Modi said.
The centre-left government led by the Congress party that was ousted in the election was seen as ineffectual and unable to carry out reforms as departments from finance to environment worked at cross purposes.
Modi promised in his election campaign to revive economic growth that has fallen below 5 per cent, choking off job opportunities for the one million people who enter the workforce every month, and dangled the prospect of new roads, factories, power lines, high-speed trains and even 100 new cities.
PM Narendra Modi during his Independence Day speech at Red Fort in New Delhi.
So far, there has been little movement on any of these tasks, which will require an overhaul of land acquisition laws, faster environmental clearances and an end to red tape.
Many of his supporters have been disappointed that he has not cut food aid and other costly welfare schemes to channel money into more effective poverty reduction steps. However, economists said it was too early to expect dramatic initiatives.
"Let's get our expectations to real, acceptable levels," said Shubhada Rao, chief economist at YES Bank. "For the first three years, it is going to be a repair-and-mend phase ... only then the economy will be ready to take off. Until you repair, these big bang announcements would go to waste."
'Made in India'
In his speech, Modi spoke of the need to strengthen the manufacturing sector and appealed repeatedly to investors: "Come, make in India".
He also spoke about violence against women, saying his head hung in shame to see incidents of rape and sexual assault continuing unabated since the world was stunned by the gang rape and murder of a young woman in New Delhi in 2012.
He said that while the law will take its course, Indian society must itself be raising sons in the best possible manner.
"After all, a person who is raping is somebody's son. As parents have we asked our sons where he is going? We need to take responsibility to bring our sons who have deviated from the right path, to bring them back."
He urged an end to caste and communal violence, drawing a critical response from his political opponents who have accused his Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party of inciting social tensions for electoral gain.
Modi has been dogged for years by allegations that he did too little to prevent riots in Gujarat in 2002 in which more than 1,000 people, most of them Muslims, were killed. He denies wrongdoing and was exonerated by an investigation ordered by the Supreme Court.
"The words are fine, but what about the track record?" Rajeev Gowda, a senior Congress party lawmaker, told news channel NDTV.
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