The UDF government has reconstituted the State Planning Board with former cabinet secretary T M Chandrasekhar returning as the Planning Board vice chairperson. Chandrasekhar was the vice chairperson during the 2011-16 UDF tenure when Oommen Chandy was Chief Minister.

Chief Minister V D Satheesan will be the chairperson and the reconstituted Board will have five ministers representing the various UDF allies as members: industries and information technology minister P K Kunhalikutty, power minister Sunny Joseph, water resources minister Mons Joseph, forest minister Shibu Baby John and transport minister C P John, who incidentally was one of the expert members of the Board when Chandrasekhar was vice chairman during the 2011-16 period.

The non-minister expert members of the Planning Board, some of them part-time, will be announced later. Last time when Chandrasekhar was vice chairman, Metroman E Sreedharan and industrialist Tarun Das were part-time expert members. Sources said some high-profile names from the field of shipping and industry will be roped in as part-time expert members.

In the last Planning Board with V K Ramachandran as the vice chairperson, there were six expert members and three part-time expert members.

In 2011, Chandrasekhar was appointed vice chairperson right after he retired as cabinet secretary under the UPA government led by Manmohan Singh. It was under him that Kerala Perspective Plan 2030 was prepared. It was the first attempt in Kerala to lift Kerala's standard of living to that of Nordic countries like Sweden, Denmark and Norway in 20 years.

Chandrasekhar remained an unofficial consultant for the Kerala government even after he left the Planning Board. He was one of the chief mentors of the team that came up with a fiscal strategy to be adopted before the 16th Finance Commission. It was Chandrasekhar who first argued that cesses and surcharges imposed by the Centre were robbing states of their rightful share in the divisible pool.

Now, Chandrasekhar is taking charge with a mandate to restructure the State Planning Board. "The State Planning Board needs to be restructured to become a more effective organisation. While it will continue its present activities, it should also be redesigned to serve as a think tank for the government. It must be a repository of ideas received from all over. These ideas have to be processed and, where feasible, sent to the government," said the Status Report on Kerala's Fiscal Health, better known as the 'white paper'.

Incidentally, Chandrasekhar was one of the chief architects of the 'white paper'. Under Chandrasekhar, the Planning Board is expected to branch out to hitherto unexplored tasks like networking. He has repeatedly spoken of the need to include civil society groups in governance. The Planning Board under him might initiate the process. He has also advocated, perhaps controversially, for closer ties with NITI Aayog.